Time Crisis II - Gameplay

Gameplay

Time Crisis II was released utilizing Namco's System 23 arcade board in 1998, and was ported to PlayStation 2 (with enhanced graphics and polygon textures) in 2001. The game utilizes the foot pedal system, just like Time Crisis, where players can shoot or hide from enemy fire. One modification to the hide and attack system was the "crisis flash" system which alerts the players whether or not the enemy's attack would cause a direct hit, a feature not present in its first predecessor, Time Crisis.

When pressing down on the pedal, the player comes out of hiding, being able to shoot the enemies. Releasing the pedal puts the player behind cover to avoid critical bullets and reload the weapon, though the player cannot shoot whilst hiding. Certain sections of the game give players a machine gun with unlimited ammo.

The player loses a life if hit by a critical bullet or an obstacle and the game ends when the player loses all lives. Players also lose a life if the time limit (which is replenished after each area is cleared), drops to zero (unlike the first game where running out of time resulted in a game over). Players can continue from the point their current position, as opposed to the PlayStation version of Time Crisis, which required players to restart from the beginning of a section.

This was the first Time Crisis game to introduce two-player cooperation by allowing two people to play simultaneously, allowing each player to cover the other (in single player, the computer controls the other character). The arcade version used connecting cabinets, allowing a player to allow another player to join, or to exclusively play alone. The PlayStation 2 version features split-screen or System Link functionality, which requires two televisions, console and copies of the game and an iLink cable to use. Points are deducted for shooting the other player, though neither player will lose lives as a result. The same system is utilized once again in Time Crisis 3 and Time Crisis 4.