Twice the action, twice the guns, twice the arcade cabinet size, and TWICE THE PLAYERS! Time Crisis II might be one of the most literal translations when Namco gave this crew the objective "make the second Time Crisis game" as it evolved its gameplay and expanded the horizon in order to make the game big enough for two players (I bet selling those gigantic cabinets to arcades and movie theaters gave Namco a nice chunk of change too).

There's something I inherently adore about the "lone wolf" setting the original Time Crisis had, something the mainline games would never return to. So I can't help but love the original game just a tad bit more. Still, this game is awesome and feels a bit more fair with how they design the enemy attacks, giving you a decent warning to react in order to avoid getting hurt! Time Crisis II is an appropriate step-up from the original experience in the ways that really matter the most.

Few things were more baffling to me than the hype this game managed to garner, despite looking like a boring collect-a-thon with slow gameplay and tedious enemies to shoot from the very beginning. From what I recall, people were convinced this was going to be some Metal Slug successor because of the art style, and they didn't pay attention when the devs involved cited SPECIFICALLY the Metal Slug games on Neo Geo Pocket, which were less run-n-gun and had more emphasis on exploring.

Regardless, this game is worse than those. It doesn't help that I really don't like Paul Robertson's art, which I find the be nothing if not obnoxious. The game functions perfectly fine, but I still have a hard time thinking of anything remotely enjoyable about this. From what I see, though, that initial hype was long forgotten and a lot of folks see it for the mostly-miserable experience that it truly is.

Shit sucks lol

A great successor that expanded on concepts and presentation while doing some globetrotting! The House Of the Dead 2 is likely the most popular entry in the series, and that's for good reason! It's fun, fast-paced, and is teeming with a fun art style and sound design, it's always a blast to play! While SEGA was having trouble in the console department, their output in the arcade scene showed no signs of slowing down!

Of course, I can't forget that the goofy voice-acting helped make this a memorable experience as well. It's hard to say if it was lack of direction or something else, but there's mysterious sense of endearment coming from it. It almost alleviates the dreary and gory zombie-slaying experience to make it more charming and funny.

I can't wait for this to also get a garbage-ass remake.

A fairly unique defense rogue-lite RPG, but it gets way too frustrating, especially as you approach the endgame and just a single character dies at an instant, due to the horrible balancing issues that rears its head more than ever near the end.

There's things that I like about the game, such as the stamina and attack system that calls for arithmetic math on-the-fly (which I kinda love), but it gets so tedious the farther you get and unlocking new heroes is so insanely cumbersome, considering how damn hard it is just to clear the campaign.

I bought this for $20 out of desperation for Nintendo Switch games when the console launched, but only dove deep recently. After weeks of playing it, I decided it just isn't worth trying for new heroes besides the ones I managed to unlock.

A great action platformer with a buddy-cop story that's really fun to see unfurl. Ratchet & Clank ups the ante of typical platformers, by giving our fuzzy hero an assortment of destructive weapons to take on the oncoming foes!

This would be a considerably humble game compared to the sequels, as they emphasized more and more on the gun-toting action as time went on. However, all four of the mainline games on Playstation 2 would shine in their own ways. The first game being with its emphasis on platforming fun.

Genuinely awful experience, despite what reviews back in the stone ages said. It's no wonder they went back and fixed their numerous mistakes (from the terrible slowdowns to the boring enemy/weapon placements) about a year later with Metal Slug X. Please avoid this blemish on the run-n-gun franchise and experience it the way it was meant to be played with its immediate remake.

I also find it weird that they still port this game separately. I get game history preservation, but unbeknownst folks probably feel tricked into wasting 8 dollars at times.

The Prometheus to Harmonix's future endeavors, Frequency is a great idea for a rhythm game, but implemented in a presentation so hideously garish and obtuse, you would think space aliens designed the graphics and visuals.

Frequency came from a place where Harmonix got an opportunity to work with Sony in order to provide unique, rhythmic action in a way that emulated the style of reading music sheets, while not needing the wherewithal in order to play these raving tracks for high scores! A predecessor of what's the come.

It's a very humble game with a humbling soundtrack (mostly licensed from other artists, but no huge names besides No Doubt). The sequel would flesh out the concept in a way that wasn't just more enjoyable, it also didn't look like visual nonsense.

A reasonably good game, considering the sporadic quality regarding games based on pre-existing IPs back then. Buster Busts Loose is a really neat platformer that tried to ride the line of speed and careful control.

Something that holds it back, in my opinion--and something the devs couldn't help--is the fact that it's not in widescreen. Unlike Sonic, the design makes way for points where you can't react quickly enough to what's coming, so the game feels unfair more often than the more well-known blue blur of the gamingsphere.

Regardless, it feels pretty good to play and satisying to see they kind of gave a shit when it came to providing a challenging game for Tiny Toons fans. I also like how a decent chunk of the game is locked out if you choose Easy difficulty.

I have pretty vivid memories of Twisted Metal 2 when I was a kid, usually at a friend's place as I didn't own a PS1 back then. Although I also have really vague memories of the third and fourth title, so I definitely played this when it was fairly new. When you're a kid, you're obviously way more accepting of low quality stuff. I'm pretty sure 3 and 4 as experiences to me back then amounted to "those were good too!" However there's something to be said about having no actual memories of the stages, the vehicles, the characters, etc.

But later on in my life, revisiting this game is absolutely miserable. I can't help it when it fails to achieve the same level of quality that was already set in the game before this. The physics of the cars are complete shit--flipping over constantly is not fun--and the overall atmosphere and style is nothing if not uninspired. This game came out in that awkward phase where EVERYONE just had to try 3D animation, and it usually comes out looking like garbage, but they didn't care because "it's 3D!"

The people behind this game only saw Twisted Metal 2--at most-- at a surface level. They didn't understand the nuances of the writing, presentation, or even the gameplay.