Time Crisis 4 - first look

The new, USB Gun-Con is unique in several ways, but we'll go with the most obvious first: you need two hands to operate it, because it's got a front-mounted stock in addition to the main handle at the rear, just like an Uzi. And both hands will find their thumbs resting on an analog stick, with two buttons (the shoulder buttons remapped) nearby. It even has limited tilt/twist sensitivity, though we didn't find ourselves using it during our playtest.

It also has a trigger, which we squeezed the crap out of over and over during our level-long demo. That's when we started noticing some of the new nuances of gameplay. For instance, you have four weapons now: a handgun, shotgun, machine gun, and grenade launcher. As long as you've got ammo, you can swap between them at will. It matters, too: the machine gun is much better against swarms of bugs, some enemies are much easier to dispatch with the shotgun, and so on. You'll also have a knife - that's an interesting addition in the gun game genre.

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Eric Bratcher
I was the founding Executive Editor/Editor in Chief here at GR, charged with making sure we published great stories every day without burning down the building or getting sued. Which isn't nearly as easy as you might imagine. I don't work for GR any longer, but I still come here - why wouldn't I? It's awesome. I'm a fairly average person who has nursed an above average love of video games since I first played Pong just over 30 years ago. I entered the games journalism world as a freelancer and have since been on staff at the magazines Next Generation and PSM before coming over to GamesRadar. Outside of gaming, I also love music (especially classic metal and hard rock), my lovely wife, my pet pig Bacon, Japanese monster movies, and my dented, now dearly departed '89 Ranger pickup truck. I pray sincerely. I cheer for the Bears, Bulls, and White Sox. And behind Tyler Nagata, I am probably the GR staffer least likely to get arrested... again.