Time Crisis II 1997
Log Status
Completed
Playing
Backlog
Wishlist
Rating
Time Played
--
Days in Journal
1 day
Last played
December 13, 2022
Platforms Played
Library Ownership
I reckon Time Crisis II has become the gold standard lightgun game in most folk's view. It's easy to enjoy. Richard Miller is gone, and supplanted by two cocky sports coat owners, Robert Baxter and Keith Martin. When confronted by the prospect of a terrorist group launching nuclear weapons, they retort with a "I don't think so!" and race across international waters to see how quickly they can shoot two-hundred men dead.
The technological leap from the original game allows TC2 to do really have fun with its scenarios. Shooting and ducking behind cascading barrels, chasing a boss in a speedboat, and having an intense shoot-out on two parallel trains. It's whizzy and daft.
The big feature of Time Crisis II is that it adapts Time Crisis into a two-player game, like any attractive lightgun cabinet would be. Time Crisis' mechanics meant that each player needs to have their own screen. It's not the traditional lightgun shooting gallery. It's quite a difficult thing to do in a home conversion, as it has to maintain a 4:3 ratio for both players, and unless you've got a massive CRT, you're going to end up with a screen the size of a smartphone. Thankfully, the PS2 version features i.Link support, allowing you to hook up two PS2s to two 4:3 CRTs and have each player use full screens. I don't see myself ever being able to play this mode, especially since PS2s made after 2002 or so dropped the i.Link port.
Even if you're just playing in one-player, the scenario is tailored towards two characters, each taking slightly different routes through the levels. If an enemy is pinning your partner down, you might be able to hit them and help out. If you plug your gun into the other port, you can play the slightly-different Player 2 scenario, which does add some replay value if the Player 1 route is starting to feel a little overfamiliar.
Time Crisis II is fun, but I feel the high-flying, dip-and-diving nature of the game makes it feel less solid than the original. Most the game is still about placing you behind cover and finding opportunities to pop up and dispatch as many baddies as you can, but the big, moving setpieces kind of diminish that for me. The couple instances where you're given a rapidfire weapon, and just hold the trigger down until a big target explodes, is the start of a slippery slope into inconsequential airyfairy nonsense that the further sequels would languish in. But it's fun. It breaks up the pace. I guess that's what casual arcade-goers approaching a Time Crisis cabinet would be excited by.
If this is the standard lightgun game for most folk, they could do a hell of a lot worse. I do enjoy the nonsense. Wild Dog's return (first of many) and ducking as a big galoot swings a nuclear missile at your face. It's a fairly robust PS2 disc too, with extra training modes, unlockables, and a wildly impractical dual-wielding mode that was the stuff of my childhood dreams. I'm honest to god recommending this, and calling it a 9/10. It's very hard for me to talk about anything for a while and not mention how much I love Time Crisis 1, though.
The technological leap from the original game allows TC2 to do really have fun with its scenarios. Shooting and ducking behind cascading barrels, chasing a boss in a speedboat, and having an intense shoot-out on two parallel trains. It's whizzy and daft.
The big feature of Time Crisis II is that it adapts Time Crisis into a two-player game, like any attractive lightgun cabinet would be. Time Crisis' mechanics meant that each player needs to have their own screen. It's not the traditional lightgun shooting gallery. It's quite a difficult thing to do in a home conversion, as it has to maintain a 4:3 ratio for both players, and unless you've got a massive CRT, you're going to end up with a screen the size of a smartphone. Thankfully, the PS2 version features i.Link support, allowing you to hook up two PS2s to two 4:3 CRTs and have each player use full screens. I don't see myself ever being able to play this mode, especially since PS2s made after 2002 or so dropped the i.Link port.
Even if you're just playing in one-player, the scenario is tailored towards two characters, each taking slightly different routes through the levels. If an enemy is pinning your partner down, you might be able to hit them and help out. If you plug your gun into the other port, you can play the slightly-different Player 2 scenario, which does add some replay value if the Player 1 route is starting to feel a little overfamiliar.
Time Crisis II is fun, but I feel the high-flying, dip-and-diving nature of the game makes it feel less solid than the original. Most the game is still about placing you behind cover and finding opportunities to pop up and dispatch as many baddies as you can, but the big, moving setpieces kind of diminish that for me. The couple instances where you're given a rapidfire weapon, and just hold the trigger down until a big target explodes, is the start of a slippery slope into inconsequential airyfairy nonsense that the further sequels would languish in. But it's fun. It breaks up the pace. I guess that's what casual arcade-goers approaching a Time Crisis cabinet would be excited by.
If this is the standard lightgun game for most folk, they could do a hell of a lot worse. I do enjoy the nonsense. Wild Dog's return (first of many) and ducking as a big galoot swings a nuclear missile at your face. It's a fairly robust PS2 disc too, with extra training modes, unlockables, and a wildly impractical dual-wielding mode that was the stuff of my childhood dreams. I'm honest to god recommending this, and calling it a 9/10. It's very hard for me to talk about anything for a while and not mention how much I love Time Crisis 1, though.