Arcade perfect ports are hard to come by these days, but Time Crisis 3 gets close to that mark, at least visually. While you'll get more bang for your buck with a bigger TV, the graphics are nice to look at. The same vibrant visuals that reside in the arcade are delivered to the PS2 almost seamlessly.

The sounds are also nearly identical to the arcade ambiance. Not much has been changed in the way of the fast-paced music and hard-hitting effects, and for good reason. Thankfully the developers were aware of the motto 'if it isn't broke don't fix it', because what worked in the arcade works just as well on the PS2. The only bad part is the dialog, but you can always skip the cut scenes if it gets too cheesy.

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.

The developers have made Time Crisis 3 a surprisingly easy game to get into. Calibrating your Guncon is done quickly as soon as the game has loaded, and it is only a matter of moments until you get into the intuitive shooting gameplay. Some difficult parts arrive in the later area of the game, where enemies seem to pop out in front of you and shoot before you have a chance to react, but these occurrences are few and far between, and ultimately don't take that much away from the experience.

Simply put, Time Crisis 3 cannot be played without some type of gun peripheral. The Guncon 2 that comes with the game does a fine job of filling that gap, but without it the game is boring to play and impossible to get good at.

The Guncon 2 that comes bundled with Time Crisis 3 looks cool and works almost as well as the one in the arcade. The only problem is the fact that the way the game is played was designed for a foot pedal instead of hitting buttons on the side of your gun. Whenever you need to reload or get behind cover, you have to find one of the oddly placed buttons on the gun, which costs precious seconds. The placement of the buttons may work for other games, but hinders the flow of Time Crisis 3.

Apart from that, there isn't much to complain about. Fans of the arcade game will find this a real prize, and anyone new to the titles couldn't be treated to a better example of their quality.