Yesterday, a representative from Namco Bandai visited the office and gave us a hands-on demonstration of Namco's upcoming lightgun game: Time Crisis 4. The game is scheduled to release in a bundle only, and will include the newest GunCon peripheral and the necessary sensors that will allow you to use the lightgun with any display you may (or may not) have. Although our time with the game was limited, we had the opportunity to play through the entirety of a later stage, all using the new FPS interface made possible by the GunCon 3.

As we mentioned before, Time Crisis 4 will not only feature the more classic Arcade modes (shooting on rails), but also an FPS mode that takes advantage of the two joysticks to create a standard first-person control interface - that's what we spent our time playing. For this particular mode, you assume the role of Captain William Rush, a casually bad-ass soldier sent in for some random mission or another (we aren't quite sure about the details yet). What we do know is that there's a secret (possibly renegade), elite unit that's stirring up some trouble for somebody, and Rush has to stop them. For the mission we took on, Rush was sent in to clear enemies out of a dam and stop them from destroying it. And that's how the action begins.

You hold the GunCon 3 like any other GunCon, except you place your left hand on the side joystick for moving your character. The right joystick controls where you look, and you can aim the GunCon anywhere on the screen to shoot. For those just starting out, you can toggle on a small aiming reticule to help guide your shots, but veterans may want to turn it off and just aim down the barrel. We tried both systems, and they seemed to work well.

Two triggers near your left hand were assigned to reload and jump, and a button near your right thumb was used to cycle through your weapons. Although you have all the weapons from the start, you pick up enhancements or modifications to those weapons throughout the course of the game. For example, Rush starts with a few grenades, but later picks up a launcher that replaces the hand-held grenades. We also had access to a handgun, machinegun, shotgun and the (quintessential) knife.

After sweeping the top of the damn and destroying a few anti-air emplacements, we made our way down the side and starting taking on some tougher foes. These included soldiers with riot shields, and chain-gun toting baddies (who were quite a bit harder to kill). After moving through the tunnels and passages lining the inside of the dam, you finally end up in a power station and take on the boss. We're not going to give away who he is, but let's just say that he can teleport and has a massive rail gun that's really difficult to avoid. Yeah. It was a challenge.

So far, the game looks nice and smooth, and while the environments are a little bland at the moment, the character models are surprisingly good (including the rather impressive facial animations). The representative told us that the FPS mode would have fifteen stages, each clocking in at about thirty to forty-five minutes. And that's just one mode for the game. Time Crisis 4 should please a lot of Time Crisis fans, and maybe win over some FPS addicts who want to combine the pointer functionality of the Wii with traditional FPS controls.