Timesplitters is a series that dates back to my childhood, though I did not own the game, I played Timesplitters 2 with a friend in multiplayer and had a blast. Later on I got my own copy of the game as well as Timesplitters 1 & Future Perfect. Excited to go back and re-experience some childhood memories, I booted up Timesplitters 2 and played some of the multiplayer with bots for some good memories.
Now before I talk about the individual games themselves, I wish to talk about the series as a whole and what attracted me to the series aside from all of the nostalgia that I had as a kid. Timesplitters is a game that revolves around traveling through time to fight baddies from different time periods in a wide variety of locations. Does this sound familiar? Of course, it’s just like Painkiller Overdose and the level variety is similar to that of Painkiller in general. I love it when games can bring about a wide variety of levels and enemy types to explore as it keeps me from getting bored with the same old aesthetic. This is one of the things that I have come to appreciate about the Timesplitters series as a whole and is something that definitely deserves merit.
It should also be noted that each Timesplitters game has a plethora of content, including challenge modes and of course the arcade mode where you can play with other people or bots, with plenty off unlockable content, including a map editor that you can spend potentially hours with. Timesplitters is a series that has all the passion and care put into it that you just do not get in current generation games, it spares little expense in giving players lots of fun things to experience.
But does the series hold up today? That is a good question. You see, Free Radical are former Rare developers who decided that they wanted to continue making first person shooters. This is the same team that worked on Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 and boy does it show in the early games in the series. Let’s talk about the first Timesplitters.
Timesplitters
The original Timesplitters was a launch title for the PS2, which is evident due to it having one of the black cases for PAL territories as opposed to the blue ones we got later on. So needless to say, Timesplitters 1 has an old school feel to it that might be nostalgic for those who played a lot of shooters in the late 90’s. The shooting as a whole feels less about careful aim and more about quick reflexes and knowledge of enemy spawns. You see, Timesplitters 1 is not an easy game as the enemy placement and spawns can feel extremely unfair at times which can put you in a very bad situation if you didn’t anticipate their position quickly enough. This makes Timesplitters a game that requires a lot of trial and error to get through each level which can make the game feel rather frustrating.
The levels themselves do feature health packs and armor but only in small quantities. So you really need to be especially careful with your health in this game. Enemies tend to deal a lot of damage, on normal difficulty at least. It might be a good idea to play the levels on easy difficulty first as normal difficulty feels more like hard difficulty in this game. To make things even harder, there are sections of the game which require you to get headshots on enemies in order to kill them. The issue with this is that there’s no reticle by default, instead you have to hold an aim button to bring up the reticle and slightly adjust your aim to reach their head in order to shoot them in the head. When aiming, shots fired are central to where you are facing by default and any form of aim movement will be reset back to the position you started aiming at the moment you center the analog stick like a magnet. This can be annoying for those looking to hold their aim in position and makes the sniper rifles almost completely unusable as the aiming for them is terrible due to this control scheme, which can get rather infuriating on certain levels. Also if you just happen to die on any of the game’s levels, you will have to start the level from scratch on every retry. Thankfully though, most of the levels are short and the game can be beaten quickly presuming you can deal with the overwhelming difficulty.
The levels in Timesplitters’ campaign have no cutscenes or story whatsoever, which may or may not be a good thing depending on what you are looking for. On the plus side, having no comm chatter helps put more emphasis on the atmosphere of the game’s levels but not having story might make the experience feel incomplete to those who enjoy narrative in their games. Personally speaking, the lack of story doesn’t bother me, so this isn’t an issue. Other than that, the game features Multiplayer and a Challenge mode for those looking to invest more time into the game but that’s about it.
The levels are a mixed bag in regards to aesthetic quality but there are some good looking levels here and there. I do think the music is pretty good for the most part, particularly the electronic ones of the future areas, those were fantastic.
Overall, Timesplitters is a very basic shooter that leans on the harder side with a bit of old school jank. It’s not going to be a laid back, easy going experience and it’s likely going to frustrate you with its archaic nature but it does have a few decent aspects to it and those looking for a trip down memory lane to a time when shooters were more simplistic, perhaps this game might be worth a shot but for most people, this game will be a bit of an ordeal to play.
Timesplitters 2
Ok so now we have the game that got me into the series originally and I have to say, I was quite shocked when I delved deeper into this game’s campaign as previously I was only familiar with the game’s multiplayer. Timesplitters 2 makes quite a few changes from its predecessor, one of which being the addition of cutscenes in each level to give context to what you are doing. There are also missions to do now which is more of a detriment to the game than anything if you ask me as many of the fail conditions are absolutely absurd and infuriating throughout. Put simply, Timesplitters 2 is just as hard if not harder than the first game but for completely different reasons. The enemy positioning is the least of your worries in this game as while I do think that it is a little better than the enemy positioning of the first game, that doesn’t change the fact that the missions are an ordeal and will frustrate the hell out of you.
Remember when I said that there’s no checkpoints in the first Timesplitters game? Well guess what? Timesplitters 2 adds checkpoints to the levels, the downside is though that there’s usually only 1 checkpoint provided to you and that checkpoint tends to be in a terrible position. To make things worse, some of the levels can be a long, tedious slog to get through, which makes dying feel even worse when you either restart at a very early checkpoint or don’t even reach the checkpoint at all and have to start from scratch.
The mission objectives make this worse as you can fail at any time on your playthrough, sometimes from something really stupid and this means you have to restart the level to complete it, which is why missions are a terrible addition to this game and should never have featured in the game to begin with. Playing Timesplitters 2 made me appreciate the simplicity of the original Timesplitters a lot more than I did as there wasn’t any gimmicky bullshit to deal with such as putting out fires with the fire extinguisher only for one tiny bit of fire that you missed and the extinguisher just emptied before you could put it out, forcing you to backtrack through the level, hoping than there’s a spare extinguisher to refill your previous one. To make matters worse, this mission is also timed, so even if you managed to backtrack far enough to refill your extinguisher, you will still fail because by the time you get back to where you were, you’ll have run out of time. That is just one example of the plethora of annoying missions and gimmicks this game throws at you.
If all this wasn’t bad enough, Timesplitters 2 removes health packs entirely with the exception of one level later on in the game, so if you get hit by anything in the early portions of a level, it’s usually best to restart before reaching the first checkpoint so that by the time you reach the first checkpoint, your health is as high as possible to make the rest of the level easier to deal with. You do still get armor thankfully but this doesn’t change the fact that the lack of health packs is an unbelievably brutal design choice by the game developers.
This isn’t fun
To make matters even worse, aiming in Timesplitters 2 feels weird and this is because of how movement affects your aim. In other first person shooters, you are encouraged to strafe as you shoot to dodge enemy projectiles but in Timesplitters 2, you are instead encouraged to remain perfectly still as it makes your aim better for some reason. So instead of dodging bullets and firing back, you’re creeping around corners and waiting for enemies to appear so that you can get the first shot on them. The good thing is that shooting enemies usually staggers them, so even if you didn’t get a headshot, repeated shots while standing will eventually kill them without having to worry about retaliation. Obviously this only works in situations where only a single enemy is present. When you are dealing with multiple enemies, this tactic no longer works. Because of this, beating levels in Timesplitters 2 doesn’t feel like an accomplishment based on skill, it feels more like you’ve just cheesed your way through the game by exploiting the AI stagger and standing aim but this doesn’t make every enemy encounter a cakewalk though.
The levels are generally better looking in the visual department than the first game but there are a few exceptions such as Spaceways which still holds up to this day aesthetically speaking. The aesthetics are still a mixed bag though as some levels look absolutely bland. As for the other levels, while they might be a treat for the eyes, they aren’t exactly all that fun to play though sadly. The music is a step down from its predecessor, though it does have a few standouts like the one in the Wild West level and Siberia, I found that the first game had more memorable tracks overall but I guess that’s more of a personal take. Ultimately the music does its job at giving off that atmospheric feel at least, it’s just less of a bop like the first game’s was.
Timesplitters 2 adds a new mode called Arcade League which unlike the actual campaign, is pretty fun to play and is what the main campaign should have been from the start. Arcade League presents you with challenges that take place in the arcade mode, which is where multiplayer matches take place. So they are basically multiplayer style matches with bots but with a challenge to overcome in order to clear them. Given the fact that these are based on the multiplayer, they aren’t gimmicky in the slightest and are all about player skill, which is something I liked about them. Don’t think that this makes them a cakewalk though as they can get more difficult in the later leagues. Challenge mode also returns too as does the map maker, so there’s plenty of stuff to do in this game.
Overall, Timesplitters 2 is a step up in some ways from its predecessor but is sadly a step down also and unfortunately, its problems vastly outweigh all of the improvements made, making Timesplitters 2 a very hard game to recommend to anyone. I would only recommend this game to those who have friends to play multiplayer with as playing it solo just isn’t fun. The tools are there to make a great multiplayer experience for sure but this is in my opinion the worst of the three Timesplitters games, which is a shame because it’s the one that I have the most nostalgia for.
Timesplitters Future Perfect
Ok so the third entry of the Timesplitters series titled Future Perfect fixed the biggest issue that plagued the first two entries, that being the lack of a reticle by default, which is completely rectified in this game as you always have a reticle on screen, making it easier to aim with the left analog stick without having to go into aim mode. Aim mode has improved also as it doesn’t magnetize back to the position you are facing, making snipers actually viable in this game. Plus moving while shooting is viable unlike in the previous game also which makes the gunplay a lot more fun than just standing and shooting. Timesplitters Future Perfect carries over Timesplitters 2’s missions but they are more tolerable this time around, though there are a few gimmicky missions that can be a bit annoying sadly, including timed puzzle sequences in the same vein as Onimusha Warlords’ water puzzle, as well as the escort missions that the game loves to throw at you.
Future Perfect’s missions feel the most fun to play overall and the most fair in regards to difficulty. Normal difficulty actually feels normal while Hard difficulty is more comparable to the Normal difficulty of the first Timesplitters. While some might find this to be too easy, I actually found this to be relieving as I could actually have fun in most of the game’s missions. In fact, after having beaten Timesplitters 1 & 2, bracing myself for the worst, I actually had a surprisingly easy time getting through this game on normal, despite a few hiccups along the way due to those gimmicks and escort missions.
One thing that Future Perfect expands on more is the story and they chose to take the tongue in cheek approach. Expect a lot of pop culture references and some silly moments along the way. While I found these moments mildly amusing, I personally didn’t think that they were necessary. You will spend most levels with an ally and occasionally said ally likes to run right in front of you and block your line of sight when trying to shoot enemies close to them, they aren’t the smartest bunch but they will tank hits to some degree, however there were cases where I failed a mission because a character took too many hits and died. One character died when I placed TNT on a door to open it as they walked towards it for some reason and blew up with it to name an example. Obviously in the escort missions specifically they do get a health bar that you can see and that health bar can decrease pretty rapidly so you really have to stay on your toes in those missions. Some of them are trickier than others though. The one where you have to snipe from the water tower was the most frustrating one for me as you have barely any time to carefully aim at enemies because your companion’s health is dropping super fast.
There’s also the dreaded comm chatter in this game from your distant companion Anya who will constantly remind you of what to do. As much as I despise comm chatter in games as it ruins the atmosphere, without it, I probably would have struggled in certain points as I needed to be told what to do. Thankfully Anya acts as a reminder and doesn’t seem to bother you too often. If anything it’s your partner that is the one making all the noise in the level. As you can probably tell, Timesplitters Future Perfect started heading in the direction of modern shooters and while this is mostly for the better, it’s a shame that they didn’t fix the problems before heading in that direction as while the game is overall superior, the atmosphere that the first two games had is lacking in this game.
Move out of the way Robot Man, I’m trying to shoot!
The music of Future Perfect is arguably the worst in the series and is the most forgettable. The level aesthetic is a mixed bag also but overall, I thing the previous games did a better job with the aesthetics also despite this being a more modern entry, this is due to the emphasis on atmosphere over dialogue. That isn’t to say that none of the levels were remotely interesting as there was a couple of levels that stood out as being decent aesthetically. It’s just that the previous entries were better in this department.
Nevertheless, what ultimately matters in videogames is the gameplay and I’m just glad that the gameplay of Future Perfect is actually good this time around, so if this comes at an expense of atmospheric decline then so be it. I had been searching for another first person shooter that I could walk away satisfied with and Timesplitters Future Perfect just happened to be the game that I was looking for. It only took 3 attempts to actually make it good but they succeeded thankfully. There isn’t anything particularly unique about the combat though Cortex’s temporal uplink now allows him to interact with objects at a distance. There are a few new weapons that are interesting though such as the Ghost Gun which you need to use in order to deal with ghosts that appear in one of the levels and can be used in the game’s arcade modes as well. Speaking of which, Arcade league returns and is just as fun as it was in 2, if not better now that there’s a better aiming system, making Future Perfect the definitive multiplayer experience in the series. The map maker also returns in this game which is great for those who want to get a little more creative and the challenge mode returns as well.
Plenty of unlockables to be had here
I can safely say that out of all three games, Future Perfect is the best game in the Timesplitters series and out of all three of them, it’s the only one that I can easily recommend to people who are looking for a first person shooter with plenty of variety in terms of levels and game modes. There’s also plenty of unlockables just like the previous entries too so there’s no shortage of things to indulge in should you please.
Ultimately though, it is sad to see the Timesplitters series disappear, particularly after they finally made a good game with Future Perfect but I guess that might actually be for the best because you never know, it could get worse. I do think that despite my grievances with the first two games in particular, there’s a lot to love about the series as a whole because you can tell that the game developers genuinely cared about it as they added loads of unlockable features and characters that nowadays would be sold separately as DLC. It’s sad to see how games have gone that way in modern times but games like Timesplitters serve to remind us of what gaming used to be like, for better or for worse. Thankfully Timesplitters Future Perfect mostly showcases the good side of 2000s gaming and deserves to be remembered alongside games like Darkwatch and Painkiller as one of the pillars of the genre in the 2000s.
At least it’s not one of these pillars…
Timesplitters
Story/Plot: Nonexistant
Visuals: Good
Gameplay: Mediocre
Music: Good
Lifespan: Quite Short
Difficulty: Hard
Would You Replay? No
Overall: Mediocre
Timesplitters 2
Story/Plot: Satisfactory
Visuals: Good
Gameplay: Mediocre
Music: Satisfactory
Lifespan: Decent Length
Difficulty: Hard
Would You Replay? No
Overall: Mediocre
Timesplitters Future Perfect
Story/Plot: Good
Visuals: Satisfactory
Gameplay: Good
Music: Mediocre
Lifespan: Decent Length
Difficulty: Medium
Would You Replay? Maybe
Overall: Satisfactory
Silly Robot…
Cynical Gaming Blog 