TimeSplitters: Future Perfect

"Short Story + Lengthy Multiplayer = Everything You Need For The Future"

The very talented team at Free Radical Design had to attempt something that many developers never get to do. They had to top TimeSplitters 2, the already fast-paced and superb shooter they made a couple of years ago. For TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, the third item in the series, Free Radical, succeeded in many ways, but also fell rather short in others to round out an overall exciting experience.

Story

Sgt. Cortez is back in action and this time he has got special sidekicks to help him on his time-traveling escapades. Cortez is sent back and forth in time to stop an evil madman named Crow. It is believed that Crow stole the time crystals in 1924 and made the time device that allowed to create the Time Splitters. Cortez has one mission, and that is to stop Crow and return the world to a place without Splitters.

Gameplay|Challenge

This is where the fun starts. Cortez goes through 13 missions shooting up bad guys all over the place, from an Irish Island in 1924, to a Human-Robot War in the 22nd Century. As Cortez travels throughout the time zones, he usually accidentally meets up with a cool sidekick character that helps Cortez on his mission, provided that Cortez helps their mission. One such example is in 1969, Cortez meets Harry Tipper, the suave, swinging spy whos aim is to stop Khallos, a James Bond villain type character, from taking over the world. There is a deeper plan under the skin and Khallos is actually helping Crow, so Cortez and Tipper go undercover together, killing bad guys together, and eventually getting to Khallos together.

The team dynamic works fairly well and your partner can usually knock out a couple of enemies for you if you need to conserve your life. And, not only that, your sidekick usually provides some great dialogue that is usually hilarious, or bad-ass. Hilarious or bad-ass dialogue runs throughout the game and most lines are spoken by both Cortez and the sidekick.

In each mission, there are a set of weapons that are usually locked into that time era; which is a good addition by the developers. So in 1924 you will use a horrible luger pistol, and a custom made machine gun, and in the 22nd century you will use sci-fi lazers and plasma auto-rifles. All the weapons seem in the right place and make the setting feel right. Another interesting but failed addition into the arsenal is the arm device. This one acts as your old Temporal Uplink from TimeSplitters 2, but it has a main component that serves as a gravity device. The gravity device can pick up objects and throw them as well as move switches and turn doors. While the idea was pretty good considering how well it worked in Half-Life 2, it does not get much use. Since you can usually get through the game almost virtually by using only your guns, there is no real insentive to use the gravity device.

Most missions simply involve Cortez firing a heavy weapon all over the place until all the enemies in an area are dead. While this may seem rather dull and boring, it is actually great fun when you consider that this time, TimeSplitters actually has a good story! And since the story is funny, exciting, and overall, just good old fashioned ass kicking fun, you will have a hard time not liking the story mode. The only gripe about the story mode is that it is rather short and will only provide a good 6 hours of entertainment on the medium difficulty level.

But when we are talking about TimeSplitters, the story mode is not the main draw, the multiplayer arcade, and challenges make the game. This time around, Free Radical provided plenty of difficult challenges to complete, some are rather obscure or different such as cat driving, or cubix shooting, but some are straight forward get the most points by shooting stuff challenges. All of the challenges are a good test of skill and should last any average player a good amount of time.

The Arcade mode is also back with 9 easy, 9 medium, and 9 hard arcade league challenges. All of these are fun to play and in order to unlock lots of the 150 characters you will have to beat these, in addition to the challenges and missions. These are also good practices for your actual arcade matches against friends or bots.

With the new arcade multiplayer mode, Free Radical went the extra mile to provide plenty of modes, such as; deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the bag, and virus, as well as provide plenty of maps. The possibilities are endless at home with 4 controllers and 3 friends. You can have never-ending fun with this game and that is what Free Radical is good at. It would be a crime to never play a multiplayer match of TimeSplitters: Future Perfect. Actually, I might write up a bill and send it off to congress to make it a crime.

Other modes that round out the offline experience are the Two-Player Co-op mode, which is basically the story mode with a real friend, and mapmaker mode. Two-Player Co-Op is very fun as long as the person you are playing with can get used to fast paced fire power. You get no extra incentives for beating the game in Co-Op except for the great feeling that you beat a really fun game with your best friend.

The Mapmaker mode is probably one of the most extensive map-making tools that any game on any console can offer. Heck, its better than some PC map-makers. You can create any situation, or any mode, while making any backdrop for your map in TS:FP, and that is another main draw of the game. Even if you have exhausted all your play in the other modes, you can still spend time to make your own matches and missions.

The final thing that I loved about TimeSplitters: Future Perfect is the humor and references that are existent throughout the story and the arcade missions. Many times in the story you will realize that a scene that is being played out seems very familiar to you. One instance was in 1969 when you get on the Khallos Express train and you enter a room where all the doors lock and the windows shut. It was a clear reference to the similar scene from Goldeneye. The whole Robot Wars mission was a reference to The Terminator and the human vs robot struggle. The great thing is that when you notice these things, you get a good laugh because Free Radical drops great lines and characters in the situations. In all honesty, this game is the funnest game I have played this generation, in terms of plain old ass-kicking fun.

The Gamecube version was kind of jipped by EA and their money-making schemes for being without an online version, but I still had and still am having great fun with the game without online. I have friends over almost every day to play it. Lets hope Nintendo goes the right route next gen and Revolution owners can get TimeSplitters 4 online.

Control

The main control scheme is easy to learn if you have not already because it is based off of the Halo controls as well as many others, but if you prefer the old ways, then you can always change your scheme any time. The controls in the game are usually extremely responsive, but at times when lots of stuff is happening on screen, then the controls can slow and stutter. This only happens briefly and rarely, so it is not a game ending experience in any way. Since the controls work fairly well, the game runs smoothly and with ease.

Graphics

Graphically, TimeSplitters: Future Perfect has its ups and downs. Character animations are pretty fluid and facial animations look remarkably realistic if not for the cartoon-like character faces. But it seems as though sometimes characters suffer from what I like to call GTA Hands; which is where all the fingers of a characters hand are fused together to form two limbs protruding out of the hand. It seems as though much like the characters, everything else in the game has its ups and downs, especially the technical aspects of the graphics.

For instance, Future Perfect can usually have multiple enemies on-screen and have plenty of loud explosions and fireballs all over the place and the game will run very fluidly, but sometimes when you least expect it, the game stutters, and this usually in the most quiet and serene places in the game. Another example is the design of levels. Most levels and mission areas are expansive and large with lots of places to explore and fire at, but most of them are rather bland looking and without any thought put into the designs. Free Radical could have benefited from a bit of Marth Stewart Living before designing some of the levels in the game.

Other than that, the rest looks jazzy. Even though lots of levels lack detail, they all seem to fit the time periods perfectly and I suppose that is the most important thing to think about when designing a game like this.

Sound

Flash! Bang! Pow! Future Perfect is an orgy of loud noises and it never ceases in its explosive nature. Explosions litter the game everywhere, as well as gun fire, and yelling. It all happens really loudly and with so much spunk that you just have to admire how good Free Radical did with the sounds. Most guns sound appropriate, but all of them pack a good punch and could probably kill on sounds alone. It seems like lots of characters yell and shout things, which is a good addition to make the game more realistically believable.

Voice acting is spotty in some areas, but most of the voice acting is good enough to pass for Hollywood work. Cortez sounds nothing like a hispanic, but the voice work was quite exceptional. Most other characters have good voice acting to accompany them as well, and most have superb one-liners and quotes that may never be forgotton. Even the robotic machine, R-110, gets a personality after a virus gets uploaded into him and he begins to spout one-liners all of the place. Overall, Free Radical did pretty good with the sounds of the past and future and deserve some props for making lots of the futuristic stuff sound believable.

Replay

Even though the story mode is a great and fun play through, it will not last you very long; which is precisely why there is a whole host of other modes to play. I have played for many hours and fired over 180,000 bullets, while travelling many miles at a respectable 8.2 miles an hour and I have still not beaten all of the challenges and arcade missions. The challenges are called challenges for a reason, they friggin challenge you and last you a good amount of time. The game can also last you many millenia and beyond simply because of its great arcade modes. Future Perfect, while not as polished as its predecessor probably due to more content, is action-packed and ass-kicking fun.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/02/05