Time Crisis II

The pedal is the idea. Time Crisis built its whole identity on a foot switch that let you duck out of the firing line whenever the screen got too busy, and the sequel refined that trade until it became a rhythm: pop up, empty the magazine, drop back before the red flashes land. On PS2 the pedal became a button on the GunCon 2, and something was lost in the translation to a thumb, though not as much as you might expect. What survived intact was the pressure. The timer on the corner of the screen is the real antagonist, refilled only by clearing an area, which means hiding is never a strategy.

Namco's 2001 conversion was the pack-in that justified buying the gun. Two players, two GunCons, split screen — and unlike most co-op light gun modes, the arcade original was designed around it. Keith and Robert work opposite sides of the same space, and enemies flanking your partner are only visible from your angle. Calling out a shooter on the other half of the screen is a genuinely strange sensation, and it remains the most interesting thing this series ever did with a second player.

The story is airport-thriller filler about a satellite network and a company called Neodyne, delivered in cutscenes that treat gravity as a suggestion. Its charm is unironic. Enemies flip backwards off scaffolding, cars are shot into somersaults, and a boss fight happens on a moving train because of course it does. Three stages, roughly half an hour if you never die, which no one manages first time.

Where the home version earns its keep is Crisis Mission, a set of scored trials built around accuracy, ricochets and timing rather than progression. It reframes the game as a test of hand and eye instead of a ride, and it is where the hours actually go once the arcade mode is memorised. The Shooting Range does similar work at smaller scale.

The catch now is obvious: a light gun designed for a CRT does not point at a flat panel. Play it with a pad and it is a curiosity. Play it as intended and it is still one of the sharpest thirty minutes the sixth generation put in front of a screen.