Time Crisis Elite

Even the least savvy gamers out there will be aware that last week was Modern Warfare 2 week. The launch of the follow-up to the best selling first-person action game of all time looms large in the run up to Christmas.

But, as ultra realistic as Call of Duty might be, some can't help but have a penchant for the utterly unrealistic but nevertheless addictive shooters that used to adorn arcade cabinets up and down the land. There was certainly something to be said for their relative simplicity.

Namco's Time Crisis Elite - the latest release in the classic shooter series - is very much a product of this kind of thinking.

Elite proffers the kind of action where your enemies remain in the open and on the spot, each one giving you a handy weak point so you can take them out. It's not necessarily easy, but it's a more streamlined take on combat.

In this respect, Time Crisis Elite is very much a rehash of all the franchise's previous adventures. The game plonks you in one area, has you take down every living being on screen, then moves you forward on rails to a whole new area to do the exact same thing again.

For those who find such play tedious - and many will - Elite offers little respite. What Time Crisis Elite does do differently, however, is tailor itself almost entirely for mobile play.

Not only is the world you inhabit wisely a 2D one, but the way in which you fire your weapons directly correlates to your phone's keypad, each number button tied to an invisible 3x3 grid on the screen. Hitting the '1' key, for instance, fires at anyone stood in the top left of the screen, while tapping '5' shoots directly dead on.

Like all good shooters, Time Crisis Elite is firmly a game of reaction times - ducking down below cover before popping up again to fire upon any squares filled with combatants is the basis of play.

It's also a game of survival (in addition to the main mode there is also a dedicated Survival mode, where extra lives are notorious by their absence). Extra ammunition and lives are only given away when certain enemies are taken down.

This is all predetermined, of course, and given that each and every foe has to be killed to move forward, success rests more on your ability to balance both pace and prudence. The ever ticking clock ensures you never rest on your laurels, but keeping your head above the parapet too long results in the loss of an precious life or two.

It's classic stuff, but while it's tempting to view it through rose-tinted spectacles, time ironically hasn't treated Time Crisis well. Its one-trick-pony style of play offers very little in terms of satisfaction.

While entertaining, Time Crisis Elite is sadly just a little bit too one-dimensional to really deliver throughout.