Ever since the golden age of Duck Hunt on the NES, gun-toting shoot-’em-ups have always been popular on consoles.

Titles such as Lethal Enforcers, Yoshi’s Safari and The House of The Dead saw gamers flock to stores to satisfy their trigger-happy cravings, presumably to the horror of Daily Mail readers concerned with fears of copy-cat behavior.

The Time Crisis series has also enjoyed popular fervour among fans of the genre, particular in the arcades. The duck and cover feature differentiated it from the conventional point-shoot-kill-or-be-killed blasters.

And so the franchise found its way to the PlayStation... Back then it was one of the best shooters around, if not the best for many hardcore fans of the temporally challenging title. When versions 2 and 3 followed, gamers were just as satisfied with their fix of shooty nirvana.

Skip forward to 2008 and the gaming landscape has changed dramatically. Sega no longer make consoles, game developer budgets have risen dramatically, online gaming is commonplace and motion sensing technology has brought a new audience to the platform. Even social-networking will be a part of consoles courtesy of PlayStation Home.

Television has changed too. No longer do we have to make do with crummy standard-definition pictures. This is the age where high-def rules all.

So, it’s unfortunate that despite having its share of good points, Time Crisis 4 seems stuck in the past. It didn’t get off to a good start when it came to the initial set up.

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