From racing games to 3D fighters, one of my favorite 1990s rivalries was Namco vs. Sega. Believe it or not, this competition even spilled over into the light gun market, with Sega giving us Virtua Cop and Namco countering with the Time Crisis series. With Sega’s shooter celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, I wondered what Electronic Gaming Monthly thought of the franchise. Did they have a preference between Time Crisis and Virtua Cop?
As it turns out, EGM reviewed a total of seven games in these two series – five Time Crisis releases and two different Virtua Cops. While that may not seem like very much, that actually covers pretty much every console release between the two franchises. What we’re going to do today is countdown the best and worst Time Crisis and Virtua Cop games using Electronic Gaming Monthly’s own words and scores. There’s no editorializing here, we’re just going to focus on what the critics said back when these games first came out. So get ready to dive for safety, because this is EGM Ranks Time Crisis and Virtua Cop!
0:00 – Introduction
1:18 – Commercial: Time Crisis 2 + GunCon (Japan)
1:34 – Time Crisis 4 (PlayStation 3)
2:31 – Time Crisis: Project Titan (PlayStation)
3:14 – Time Crisis II (PlayStation 2)
3:59 – Virtua Cop (Saturn)
4:32 – Time Crisis 3 (PlayStation 2)
5:12 – Time Crisis (PlayStation)
5:44 – Virtua Cop 2 (Saturn)
6:35 – Commercial: Time Crisis – Project Titan (Japan)
6:51 – Question of the Day
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