Time Crisis 3 is the third installment of the renowned Namco arcade shooter. As always, you take the role of VSSE agents trying to stop a madman from causing World War 3. However, the home version of this shooter allows you to take on the roles of others as well, giving the game more depth and a lot more replayability than its quarter eating cousin.
The PS2 version of Time Crisis 3 not only lets you shoot your way through the regular arcade game, but also gives you an opportunity to play the Rescue Missions, a series of side-missions that follow one of the resistance members who helps you out in the regular Story mode.
These missions give the game some real replay value; it offers more levels, a new weapon leveling system, and some very interesting sniper rifle missions. These missions closely resemble Silent Scope, but on a much smaller scale. They work rather well despite some getting used to the new targeting system it introduces.
That's not the end of the side missions though. Crisis Missions put you behind the sights of the enemies' weapons as they occupy the island and fight off the VSSE forces, extending the life of the game a little bit further.
Not much of the gameplay has changed since the first Time Crisis. You still play as one of two agents battling at the same time, meaning that the experiences for player one and player two are different. The Two-player mode really shines here, as it gives you an opportunity to help each other out along the way since you are both taking the same route, but tackle enemies from different angles.
The only problem with the Two-player mode is that you won't get that great experience unless you have two TV's, two PS2's, two copies of the game and two Guncons. The split screen mode just doesn't do the game justice, and using a controller as a gun was never meant to be.
