Ride The Walrus
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Timesplitters Future Perfect – PS2 - 2005
What can I say about this game, nay this series – Timesplitters have taken up an unhealthy amount of my childhood, and are probably my favourite game series to date. I still remember the day I got it, I pre-ordered it months in advance, and me and my brother bashed it and completed the story mode within a day.
Story
As with the previous Timesplitters games before this, the story is set around creatures called Timesplitters, grey almost zombie looking skinny creatures, that travel through time disrupting time, and destroying people and objects, changing the future – think Back To the Future meets 28 Days Later. You play as a character called Cortez, a bald funny man, just returning from a mission where he had to get a selection of Timecrystals that power a time machine, so you able to go back into time and stop the Timesplitters from disrupting the time & space continuum. This is pretty much what the game is set around, not a very complicated sounding story, but it’s very good – trust me. Throughout the levels you’re thrown into all sorts of different environments, from the 1900’s up to a very distant future, as you travel to all these different places, you’ll team up with a different character each time, which is if you play 2 player’s character. You team up with a cool Hippie in the ‘70’s for as few levels who in his own words is “psychedelic”.
There are some cool characters in there, especially the monkey, that as soon as you start to enjoy, you’ll be thrown into another time period – but no fear, there’s always multiplayer for that, but I’ll get to that in a minute. Throughout the story mode, you’ll see yourself from another reality, in the future, and at times helping you out, then a little further you’ll be the one doing the helping out, it’s a cool twist, but starts to become a tad predictable throughout it. Cortez looks like a bit of a bore, but in actual fact, he’s a funny character, as are most in Timesplitters, it’s a story mode full of humour, with odd scenario’s like dressing up like women, or teaming up with a girl who’s name you don’t figure out and her T-shirt reads ‘****’. Past Timesplitters games have been shorter in the story mode, but since this was ’05, you could probably have expected a longer story, but I think that if it was longer, it would get a bit boring, and the makers get a bit desperate in the end, and making up repeated or stupid levels.
Game mode’s
Me and my brother completed this game within a day, 2 player, and it is not a very long game, but it’s sure to keep you entertained for a fair while, but on top of the story mode there’s a variety of other things to do, like special challenges with set targets, like complete in under 3 minutes for a platinum award, 2 for a gold, 1 for a silver and 30 seconds for a bronze, for example. In these challenges you could be fighting off zombie monkeys, racing mechanical cats across streets, or simply shooting cardboard cut-outs. I always struggled to get some of these complete, which was more annoying since to unlock certain characters it was necessary to meet requirements on these.
Also, there is a mapmaker mode, and be aware that this game came out five years ago, for the time it’s a detailed map-maker. You start with picking a theme like Egyptian, horror, the type of weapons available in your level, and the pre-set bots’ for you team up against, or with. In my history, I just put all monkeys on my team, and the opposition, it just looks funny to see 7 or so cyborg monkeys charging at you. The map maker has an amount of space free, which will limit you with how big your map is, or the amount of items or weapons, this certainly did get annoying, I wasn’t always able to accomplish what I pictured the level like in my head. But it’s a rather simple to figure out map-maker, with scrolling options at the top of the screen, that you can select items, flooring Etc from, then it’s a simple case of finding the item you want, and plonking it where you want it to be, there’s a guide there with what the four primary buttons there control like ‘copy’, ‘delete’.
Now we come to the main attraction of the game, the mode you can play the created maps you’ve created (if you create a map) – The arcade mode, with an array of match types, such as ‘team death match’, ‘capture the bag’, as well as not as go-without-saying game modes, that aren’t generally on other FPS’s, like a Virus mode, where one person starts on fire, and they have to run into other people, to make them the same, the game ends when everyone has been caught and has the ‘virus’. This mode is probably my favourite, it’s short, but my lord is it sweet, it normally ends with you and anyone whom you’re co-oping with, trapped in a corner, holding off. And a Monkey assistant mode, where it’s basically a death match, but the people that aren’t doing very well have monkeys helping them out; it’s a barrel of fun, but it’s annoying trying to shoot the monkeys, because obviously they’re really small height-wise, so you’ve got to aim down, and they get the advantage.
Once you’ve picked your game type, you have the option of a mixture of levels to play on, most of which are snippets of the story mode, enclosed – obviously. I recommend the level training ground, that one has always been my favourite, simply because there are two bases, and one passage between the two, or the railroad level, just because of the passing trains, seeing a pirate getting hit by a train chasing a cyborg monkey gave me sick kicks. There are 16 levels to play, most of which have special effects, like some have usable transports such as cars, so running down monkeys becomes the aim of these games. Then comes the editing option, where you can change the score limit, and a **** of a lot of options, to make the game feel as customisable until you feel its right for each person playing. There’s a massive selection of playable characters, most of which you unlock through the arcade games or the story mode. This is another area where the humour comes out, because when you click to go the character you choose, He/she/it will perform a special little action, whether this is dancing, saying something, or just making an odd noise. I'm sure that like me, if any of you buy it now,you'll go through all of the characters trying them out, i'm onto you =P
Game play
Another area this game shines is the weapons you can use, there’s basic handguns, rifles, rocket launchers, snipers, but you get these guns from different area’s in time, from the story mode, so you may be facing someone that has a 1944 rifle, while you’re welding some sort of alien gun – but this isn’t the case in the story mode (obviously). Throughout the story mode, as you travel to different realities, the weapons you possess will disappear from your character, so you don’t have an unfair advantage. The final boss battle was the only place I needed to ration my ammunition, just so you know!
Controls
The controls are a bit awkward, but that’s nothing a fiddle about in the options menu can’t fix. One of the frustrating points in the game, is the inability to jump, it sometimes feels a bit hard to get away from fire, if you have to run, rather than jump four feet in the air. As you take damage, a meter will appear at the side, showing your health loss, and will then fade regarding you don’t die, you can find armour throughout the game and multiplayer modes, which gives you another bar when you’re taking damage, giving you double or quarter health.
Graphics
The game plays very smoothly for a 2005 game, but playing it back, I can see that the graphics are fading, and look a bit pixelated from time to time, when up-close, but still, there’s much worse graphics from that time around, and if you compare it to Timesplitters 1 there’s a massive improvement, but compared to two, the graphics seem almost identical. The game itself doesn’t pride itself on the realistic characters, as said above it’s not meant to be taken seriously, it’s s funny game, so the bodies aren’t fully in proportion, infact they remind me of World Of Warcraft character detail somewhat.
The fire of the guns doesn’t look too nice, it’s mostly just a yellow mess coming out the end of your gun, just like when there’s an explosion on the game, and considering grenades are quite a main part in sections of the story, this is not good news. The detail on the guns reminds me of 007 Golden Eye’s, which was released a long time before this, which saddens me to say. The rifle looks a mess; it’s just black, with the odd bit of white thrown in for the effect of light. The background graphics are just plain awful, the surrounding terrain and the sky could have been created so much better, rather than at points like the train level, were it’s the same bit of track for about 10 seconds, over, and over again.
Soundtrack
Ah, the soundtrack, at the time of my first run of this game, I was about 9/10, and I’m not going to give it away, but there’s a point where you’re in a haunted mansion with the ‘slag’ girl, and scary as **** music plays, which is here YouTube - Mansion of Madness - TimeSplitters 3 Original Soundtrack. I have to say, I’m not easily scared, but at the time, that eerie, creepy, music did scare me. While the main menu music reminds me slightly of Halo 3’s, it’s a really well put together track. It’s a futuristic military themed track. For each level in the story mode, there’s a different track of music, which I think are majorly tastefully done.
Pro’s
Humorous, fun game to play
Lots of different game modes
Con’s
Story mode is pretty short, so I suggest going through again on harder difficulties
Final score 9.0
A brilliant game to play, one of my favourite games ever, and my favourite FPS ever. I was shocked to find out, years ago that non of my friends had even heard of this game, I thought that it was really well-known, I recommend this game to all people.
What can I say about this game, nay this series – Timesplitters have taken up an unhealthy amount of my childhood, and are probably my favourite game series to date. I still remember the day I got it, I pre-ordered it months in advance, and me and my brother bashed it and completed the story mode within a day.
Story
As with the previous Timesplitters games before this, the story is set around creatures called Timesplitters, grey almost zombie looking skinny creatures, that travel through time disrupting time, and destroying people and objects, changing the future – think Back To the Future meets 28 Days Later. You play as a character called Cortez, a bald funny man, just returning from a mission where he had to get a selection of Timecrystals that power a time machine, so you able to go back into time and stop the Timesplitters from disrupting the time & space continuum. This is pretty much what the game is set around, not a very complicated sounding story, but it’s very good – trust me. Throughout the levels you’re thrown into all sorts of different environments, from the 1900’s up to a very distant future, as you travel to all these different places, you’ll team up with a different character each time, which is if you play 2 player’s character. You team up with a cool Hippie in the ‘70’s for as few levels who in his own words is “psychedelic”.
There are some cool characters in there, especially the monkey, that as soon as you start to enjoy, you’ll be thrown into another time period – but no fear, there’s always multiplayer for that, but I’ll get to that in a minute. Throughout the story mode, you’ll see yourself from another reality, in the future, and at times helping you out, then a little further you’ll be the one doing the helping out, it’s a cool twist, but starts to become a tad predictable throughout it. Cortez looks like a bit of a bore, but in actual fact, he’s a funny character, as are most in Timesplitters, it’s a story mode full of humour, with odd scenario’s like dressing up like women, or teaming up with a girl who’s name you don’t figure out and her T-shirt reads ‘****’. Past Timesplitters games have been shorter in the story mode, but since this was ’05, you could probably have expected a longer story, but I think that if it was longer, it would get a bit boring, and the makers get a bit desperate in the end, and making up repeated or stupid levels.
Game mode’s
Me and my brother completed this game within a day, 2 player, and it is not a very long game, but it’s sure to keep you entertained for a fair while, but on top of the story mode there’s a variety of other things to do, like special challenges with set targets, like complete in under 3 minutes for a platinum award, 2 for a gold, 1 for a silver and 30 seconds for a bronze, for example. In these challenges you could be fighting off zombie monkeys, racing mechanical cats across streets, or simply shooting cardboard cut-outs. I always struggled to get some of these complete, which was more annoying since to unlock certain characters it was necessary to meet requirements on these.
Also, there is a mapmaker mode, and be aware that this game came out five years ago, for the time it’s a detailed map-maker. You start with picking a theme like Egyptian, horror, the type of weapons available in your level, and the pre-set bots’ for you team up against, or with. In my history, I just put all monkeys on my team, and the opposition, it just looks funny to see 7 or so cyborg monkeys charging at you. The map maker has an amount of space free, which will limit you with how big your map is, or the amount of items or weapons, this certainly did get annoying, I wasn’t always able to accomplish what I pictured the level like in my head. But it’s a rather simple to figure out map-maker, with scrolling options at the top of the screen, that you can select items, flooring Etc from, then it’s a simple case of finding the item you want, and plonking it where you want it to be, there’s a guide there with what the four primary buttons there control like ‘copy’, ‘delete’.
Now we come to the main attraction of the game, the mode you can play the created maps you’ve created (if you create a map) – The arcade mode, with an array of match types, such as ‘team death match’, ‘capture the bag’, as well as not as go-without-saying game modes, that aren’t generally on other FPS’s, like a Virus mode, where one person starts on fire, and they have to run into other people, to make them the same, the game ends when everyone has been caught and has the ‘virus’. This mode is probably my favourite, it’s short, but my lord is it sweet, it normally ends with you and anyone whom you’re co-oping with, trapped in a corner, holding off. And a Monkey assistant mode, where it’s basically a death match, but the people that aren’t doing very well have monkeys helping them out; it’s a barrel of fun, but it’s annoying trying to shoot the monkeys, because obviously they’re really small height-wise, so you’ve got to aim down, and they get the advantage.
Once you’ve picked your game type, you have the option of a mixture of levels to play on, most of which are snippets of the story mode, enclosed – obviously. I recommend the level training ground, that one has always been my favourite, simply because there are two bases, and one passage between the two, or the railroad level, just because of the passing trains, seeing a pirate getting hit by a train chasing a cyborg monkey gave me sick kicks. There are 16 levels to play, most of which have special effects, like some have usable transports such as cars, so running down monkeys becomes the aim of these games. Then comes the editing option, where you can change the score limit, and a **** of a lot of options, to make the game feel as customisable until you feel its right for each person playing. There’s a massive selection of playable characters, most of which you unlock through the arcade games or the story mode. This is another area where the humour comes out, because when you click to go the character you choose, He/she/it will perform a special little action, whether this is dancing, saying something, or just making an odd noise. I'm sure that like me, if any of you buy it now,you'll go through all of the characters trying them out, i'm onto you =P
Game play
Another area this game shines is the weapons you can use, there’s basic handguns, rifles, rocket launchers, snipers, but you get these guns from different area’s in time, from the story mode, so you may be facing someone that has a 1944 rifle, while you’re welding some sort of alien gun – but this isn’t the case in the story mode (obviously). Throughout the story mode, as you travel to different realities, the weapons you possess will disappear from your character, so you don’t have an unfair advantage. The final boss battle was the only place I needed to ration my ammunition, just so you know!
Controls
The controls are a bit awkward, but that’s nothing a fiddle about in the options menu can’t fix. One of the frustrating points in the game, is the inability to jump, it sometimes feels a bit hard to get away from fire, if you have to run, rather than jump four feet in the air. As you take damage, a meter will appear at the side, showing your health loss, and will then fade regarding you don’t die, you can find armour throughout the game and multiplayer modes, which gives you another bar when you’re taking damage, giving you double or quarter health.
Graphics
The game plays very smoothly for a 2005 game, but playing it back, I can see that the graphics are fading, and look a bit pixelated from time to time, when up-close, but still, there’s much worse graphics from that time around, and if you compare it to Timesplitters 1 there’s a massive improvement, but compared to two, the graphics seem almost identical. The game itself doesn’t pride itself on the realistic characters, as said above it’s not meant to be taken seriously, it’s s funny game, so the bodies aren’t fully in proportion, infact they remind me of World Of Warcraft character detail somewhat.
The fire of the guns doesn’t look too nice, it’s mostly just a yellow mess coming out the end of your gun, just like when there’s an explosion on the game, and considering grenades are quite a main part in sections of the story, this is not good news. The detail on the guns reminds me of 007 Golden Eye’s, which was released a long time before this, which saddens me to say. The rifle looks a mess; it’s just black, with the odd bit of white thrown in for the effect of light. The background graphics are just plain awful, the surrounding terrain and the sky could have been created so much better, rather than at points like the train level, were it’s the same bit of track for about 10 seconds, over, and over again.
Soundtrack
Ah, the soundtrack, at the time of my first run of this game, I was about 9/10, and I’m not going to give it away, but there’s a point where you’re in a haunted mansion with the ‘slag’ girl, and scary as **** music plays, which is here YouTube - Mansion of Madness - TimeSplitters 3 Original Soundtrack. I have to say, I’m not easily scared, but at the time, that eerie, creepy, music did scare me. While the main menu music reminds me slightly of Halo 3’s, it’s a really well put together track. It’s a futuristic military themed track. For each level in the story mode, there’s a different track of music, which I think are majorly tastefully done.
Pro’s
Humorous, fun game to play
Lots of different game modes
Con’s
Story mode is pretty short, so I suggest going through again on harder difficulties
Final score 9.0
A brilliant game to play, one of my favourite games ever, and my favourite FPS ever. I was shocked to find out, years ago that non of my friends had even heard of this game, I thought that it was really well-known, I recommend this game to all people.
