Time Crisis 5

Time Crisis 5 is the fifth main installment of Bandai Namco's arcade light-gun shooter series and brings back the pair of agents Kyle Sterling and Giorgio Bruno, who first appeared in the fourth installment, back into action against a private army threatening peace negotiations in a fictional region. Gameplay-wise, it remains the tried-and-true recipe: the player hides behind fixed cover, peeks out and shoots using a button on the pedal before the enemies on screen can hit them, and moves between cover spots depending on where enemy fire is coming from. The campaign also introduces new enemy types and heavily armored units that can't be taken down with a single hit, so the player has to aim more often at specific weak points instead of spraying fire everywhere.

The 2015 Time Crisis 5 arcade cabinet came with two guns per player instead of one - in the so-called dual mode, players can hold a gun in each hand and aim at two different targets at once, something no previous installment of the series had offered, and it changes the tactics of play as well, since the player suddenly has to deal with two sights instead of one. The cabinet also runs on considerably more powerful hardware than older machines, so the environments and character models feel noticeably more detailed than in earlier installments, and the destruction scenes are more dramatic. Boss fights thus place greater emphasis on coordinating both hands and quickly switching attention between two points of interest on screen, a shift from earlier installments, where aiming with a single sight was enough. The level design also offers more branching situations with enemies on both sides of the player at once, so that the dual controls get a full chance to show their purpose.

Why play it: Time Crisis 5 is worth trying for the dual-wielding control scheme with two guns at once - a mechanic no other installment in the series offered before, and genre fans will appreciate it as a refreshing change to an otherwise well-worn formula, without the series abandoning its proven foundations.