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 attack would cause a direct hit, a feature not present in its predecessor, Time Crisis.
When a player presses the pedal, he or she comes out of hiding, allowing them to shoot the enemies. Releasing the pedal places the player in hiding; during this time, players cannot shoot, but are safe from harm. A player must defeat all enemies before moving forward. The player's gun magazine contains 9 bullets (though occasionally a machine gun is available, which contains unlimited ammo for the remainder of the scene). Releasing the pedal also reloads the gun.
When the player fails to release the pedal after he/she spots a "crisis flash", one life is lost. The crisis flash system fixed much of the unexpected life losses that rose from Time Crisis, though seldom unexpected life loss problems still remain[citation needed]. Each scene has a 40-second time limit, but unlike Time Crisis, in which seconds kept on running out even during wait animations, the timer only runs down when the battle is ensuing. The timer is reset to 40 and/or freezes when the player(s) are on "wait animation".
The time limit system is much more lenient than Time Crisis, as players only lose one life if time runs out instead of losing the entire game. Also, 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. The same system is utilized once again in Time Crisis 3 and Time Crisis 4.
Source: Wikipedia, "Time Crisis II", available under the CC-BY-SA License.