TimeSplitters: Future Perfect

"A superb sequel to a superb series."

I picked up Timesplitters 2 a couple of years ago, and found it to be quite a distinct, unusual, and outright fun FPS game. With very Goldeneye-esque gameplay, a goofy storyline, and a slew of deathmatch games and challenges to test my mettle, not to mention the very cool MapMaker, TS2 was certainly one of the best console FPS games I had ever played. So when I picked up Future Perfect, I was a bit apprehensive, wondering if it would meet the expectations it had set for itself - and it did, and went beyond. TS:FP takes all of the innovations and cool concepts of TS2, improves them, adds in a few balances and fixes, and then sends it back in TS:FP.

Story: 7/10
Timesplitters, as a series, wasn't really known for its gripping storyline - the story mode in TS2 had almost no coherence at all, which was a tad frustrating, but I didn't mind. However, levels in TS:FP are actually strung together, using the same character for all levels, and brings back several characters we all know and love from previous installments (Harry Tipper, anyone?). Sgt. Cortez (that's you) has collected all of the lost Time Crystals and brings them back to the human base from whence he came, only to have disaster strike. They're stolen (or something) by an evil fellow and you have to pursue him through time to catch up to him and take back what he stole. Not really a brain-buster, but the time paradoxes introduced liven it up a bit (there are multiple times when you fight alongside yourself to achieve an objective). Additionally, you fight with an ally on every level to add in an additional dimension to the objectives. Pretty neat, overall, and executed quite well.

Graphics: 10/10
Another good one here. The resolution of the textures have increased somewhat, so walls look a bit more sharp and realistic. There aren't any jagged edges to speak of, and player models look significantly better. The weapons look great, too. Everything is clear, so you never get lost because you can't tell if someplace is shaded, or is actually a cave or something, and colors are used to great effect. Enemies also spurt blood when you shoot them, and in the zombie levels this looks quite cool (the Mansion of Madness is just an awesome level overall, so moody). Textures, shading, and character models are used to awesome effect here.

Gameplay: 9/10
Gameplay in Timesplitters is divided into two major categories: Story and Arcade/Challenge. The Story in TS:FP consists of 13 levels. The levels are of reasonable length - nothing like, say, Halo's levels, but long enough that they entertain you without being boring. They're full of action, with enemies at every turn. With that being said, the difficulty of Story Mode took an embarrassing drop. Timesplitters 2's Story was flat out hard. Beating the first level on Normal was a feat. Now you can cruise through Story on Normal and never die. The levels are extremely linear, and the missions aren't really very detailed anymore - just the basic "Go here, do this, then go down the hallway that opened and do this," etc. Keeping that in mind, Story Mode is still just as fun - if not more so, because of the additional length and increase in sheer combat. And yes, coop mode is still in.

Arcade mode, however, is largely unchanged, except that it seems a bit more stacked against the player now. The first Arcade level is an all-rockets deathmatch. You remember ones like that on Ice Station, right? Well, this new one is on a more maze-like (and totally lame overall) level, where the radar is useless, and enemies always seem to spawn on the opposite end of the map. There are also more Zones matches, which sucks, and they're also stacked against you more unfairly (there's one where there's like 7 enemies and you're alone and the level is another damn maze). Challenge levels are of a similar nature to TS2's, except they seem to be more difficult as well.

The MapMaker is a lot better than TS2's. The memory capacity is greater, and there's more flexibility with the tiles (and more overall), plus there's more texture sets. Multiplayer is more fun too. The addition of Vehicles, although gimmicky (they all suck), is still neat to play with. There are more weapons, roughly the same number of levels, 150 characters in all (so you get 2 or 3 characters per completed Story level or Arcade/Challenge stage). There are more cheats, too, but they seem just as gimmicky and lame as before - still nothing on the scale of Goldeneye's vast and varied selection. The multiplayer levels are great, too. Three stages return from TS2: Training Grounds, Mexican Mission, and Chinese (which is of course from TS1), and the new ones are also quite fun, from the vast open expanses of Siberia (a sniper level that's just as good as Ice Station) to a network of buildings in Venice, or the war-torn zones of Vietnam, and even a disco hall. The weapons are all great, too, and add in a great level of balance to the game. The super weapons from TS2 were almost all toned down (the SBP90s were replaced with a single SBP500, for instance), and most of the weaker weapons were bolstered, making them all (well, most) fair choices in a multiplayer game.

Sound: 7/10
Meh. The music isn't as kickass and awesome as in TS2 (although it's still pretty good), and nowhere near as catchy. The sounds are about the same quality, and many are borrowed straight from its predecessors, leaving little new here, but hey! It's still pretty good. The guns sound reasonable, the characters sound pretty good, and the ambient noise is passable. Nothing excellent here, but the sounds and music definitely do the job.

Replay value: 10/10
The unlockable scope of this game is vast. Whenever you think you're done, you're not - there's always more characters to unlock, or higher medals to achieve, or more awards... until you're 100% done, of course. But even then, there's the MapMaker, allowing a creative player to spin the multiplayer experience into a trillion different directions, and more botmatches, and a huge combination of weapons for multiplayer games mean you can make something new every time. Plus, it's just damn fun to go down a hallway with a pump-action shotgun, annihilating aliens, or sniping across the huge expanses of the Siberia level, or senselessly clobbering zombies with a baseball bat... so much fun to be had in this game. I never really gave up on TS2 until I got TS:FP.

Overall: 10/10
I love this game. Flat-out, it's one of the best console FPS games I've ever played in my life, and I've played a lot. There are some small problems, and a few things that could use fixing, but the sheer awesomeness of this game is almost inconceivable. A marvelous game; if you like FPS games, you must buy this game. Not rent, buy, because after five days you're not gonna be even close to putting this sexy beast down.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/28/05