Developer: Free Radical Design, Ltd.
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Players: 1 - 4
# of discs: 1 (CD)
Genre: First Person Shooter

Got a Ps2? Got 3 friends? Got a mini-fridge? Called in sick for the week? Now your ready to play TimeSplitters, it has begun!

A long time ago, a small company named Rare created a little gem of a game that blossomed into arguably the best game for the N64. That game of course was Goldeneye. They then went on to make a series of other successful and critically acclaimed games, one of course being the spectacular Perfect Dark. After making these games, a group of employees left the company to start their own development house and flourish separate of their parent company. This new company is Free Radical. Now with the dawn of a new generation of consoles, a new generation of First Person Shooters has begun. With several original titles, as well as a few classics, already on and being planned for the Ps2, the system is looking to be the complete opposite of the PSX, baron of almost any good shooters. For the first time, your home personal computer might have a challenge on its hand to still dominate the First Person Shooter scene, as the PS2 is growing in momentum for developers and gamers alike, of course this is the first generation of consoles that will be fully online compatible. Could that have something to do with it?

GAMEPLAY

Starting up the game brings you to a selection screen where you can choose how many players you are going to play with. Although 'Story Mode' can only be played 2 player co-operative, 'Arcade' can be played with up to 4 players with the aid of a multitap. After choosing your number of players you will then be brought to the game mode selection screen, which gives you the choice of playing; Story Mode, Arcade Mode and later, Challenge.

Story Mode:

The first thing you will notice about TimeSplitters (or not notice) is the introductory movie, absent, taking away any hopes of a solid storyline the player might have. Story Mode gives players a selection of levels spanning different times, though only 3 of these levels are opened initially. It is highly recommended the first time you play the game to play it on easy, giving you the time to get used to the control set-up Free Radical has made for you. It also gives you a chance to slowly get used to how the game plays, whereas if you play it on normal or hard, you might find it too difficult and too fast to handle first up.

"So, if it's not like the Goldeneye single player, what is it like?" Well, I'm glad you asked. As soon as I started playing TimeSplitters I was immediately reminded of Perfect Dark, however as I started get further into it, it began to remind me more and more of the previous best shooter to grace a Sony made console, Medal of Honor. Particularly in the maps set in the past, as I found myself using strategies used in MoH that I didn't use in the Rare made games. The similarities to Perfect Dark and Goldeneye can't be denied, the whole feel and look of the game makes you feel like you are playing Perfect Dark with an adrenaline shot. This is possibly attributed to the fact that it is much simpler, has less objectives and is much faster. Basically, the Story Mode is an enormously large capture the flag level, and in some cases, the harder the difficulty you select, the bigger the level. Somewhere on the level is a certain object needed to help your cause, i.e. Remains of a murderer. After you pick up this item you are then asked to return it to a certain spot on the map, often where you started, but to make it more difficult, it is sometimes somewhere completely different. If you find it difficult getting to the item, wait until you actually pick it up, all of a sudden monsters and men alike are jumping out at you in an attempt to stop your progress. This is also the most likely time for the dreaded TimeSplittersto jump out at you and fire upon you with their green balls of terror.

Story Mode can be incredibly difficult even if you know what is about to happen next. However once you know how each of the levels generally play on easy, you should then be able to go to normal and/or hard and finish the level with an average 4 or 5 tries. And if that's not enough to hold your interest, try playing the levels in co-operative mode, this not only adds more strategy to the levels, it adds another level of interaction and interest to the game. I also found co-operative mode to be strangely, A LOT more difficult than single player. Unfortunately for those of you who need a deep and involving game, Story Mode does really appear to be there for a couple of reasons;

Give you something to do until your friends arrive.
Unlock extras for the Arcade Mode.

Upon finishing each and all of the levels you will not only notice the lack of an ending sequence, but you are given a set of rewards and bonuses, which take the form of; new maps, new playable characters, new bot sets and new bots in the Arcade mode.

Arcade:

This is where the game REALLY shines. Arcade mode on TimeSplitters is for all of you who found Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 too dull and slow to even bother with. In a word, it is FAST. In Arcade mode there are several different games you can play. Deathmatch, Capture the Bag, Bag Tag, Escort and Last Man Standing. Upon selecting your choice, you are taken to select you map. The maps they have available to you increase as you finish the Story Mode, and all are well thought up and well designed. Unlike some of the futuristic and arcane maps presented to you in the likes of Quake and Unreal Tournament, Time Splitters has gone for places we have always wanted to battle our friends in, like the Mall or the Construction Yard and even a Graveyard. Those of you who prefer the maps of Quake, then you will be equally suited with some of the maps already available to you. After choosing your map, you are given the option to customize the level, teams, scoring system, weapons, bots etc. Upon entering into your match you will find yourself attacked almost immediately. This is where all your Story Mode practice comes in handy. Quickly you must find your weapon, and then, find your prey. The game is so fast in fact, that to make it last any real amount of time, you would have to set the kill limit to 80 or so, as the standard 20 will not last long, especially if you are playing against experienced players. Capture the Bag is pretty much your standard capture the flag, but with one major difference, it has a bag instead of a flag. In Unreal Tournament I found it frustrating that you could only play Capture the Flag with two teams, in Time Splitters, you can play up to 4 teams, making it all that more interesting, particularly if you have a human opponent on each of those teams. Bag Tag is a lot like the Goldeneye capture the flag, you pick up a bag, and hang onto it for as long as possible and try not to get killed. Picking up the bag will occupy your second hand, meaning those twin Uzi's you were using can only be used singularly, making it more difficult. If these modes don't float your boat, Escort and Last Man Standing will offer you some form of variation from the rest of the game.

After you finish your match a series of menus comes up, explaining who you killed, who killed you, and certain other awards you received. A lot of these awards are exactly the same as the ones in Goldeneye. Awards include; "Most Cowardly", "Most Accurate", and your weapon of choice. Think it sounds like the same old multiplayer? Well its not, as it is a lot faster paced than any game before it, and much more of an arcade experience than the excellent Goldeneye and Perfect Dark multiplayer games. Arcade mode definitely appears to be what Free Radical set out to make great about the game, as it certainly is the best multiplayer experience that can be had at this moment on a console. And if online play is added in the future when the Sony Playstation2 goes online, it could even challenge the great Half Life for multiplayer fun.

Challenge:

If you've finished Story Mode and don't have any friends, well TimeSplitters has you covered for a long time to come, as the Challenges are extremely fun levels that add a lot of replay value to this title. The challenges range from shooting off as many zombie heads as possible in as quick a time as possible (Quick Tip: try to aim just slightly above their heads with the shotgun to avoid hitting their body), to shooting as many pieces of glass windows as possible, to different styles of the Arcade modes. After completing each of the challenges set for you, you are given even more rewards, like cheats for the Story mode, such as having all the enemies appear as Bunny Rabbits etc. These challenges are about as hard as the game, and once you know what you are doing in each of the levels, it's only a matter of time before you'll finish it.

GRAPHICS

TimeSplitters is based around the principle of fluidity and speed. Sometimes the player will find himself overwhelmed with the speed of the games as bullets are raining down upon them from nowhere and everywhere. This is what Free Radical set out to do, a game that plays incredibly fast and incredibly smooth. With the goal of 60 frames per second with up to 16 characters on screen at any one time in their sights, TimeSplitters had some work to do to make the game look convincing and graphically pleasing. Considering how HUGE the levels are, how smooth the game plays and the speed at which it plays, you can forgive it for not having the best textures and polygon count around. Once in the levels, you couldn't help but be impressed with the amount of characters that can be seen on screen, and what the frame rate is like. On the challenge in which you must finish by taking off the heads of zombies this is noticeable. If you are slack and cant kill all the zombies as they come out, you will see about 30+ running around while the game maintains a playable frame rate.

Differentiating themselves from their origins at Rare, Free Radical has gone for the look of a not so serious shooter (although they are working on a more serious one currently), and one cant help but notice the games 'cartoony' look. And they have obviously gone to the effort to emphasize this with many of the character selection screen animations, some of which can bring a smile to most peoples faces. One example, when selecting one of the characters she will start to perform what could almost be called a striptease dance of sorts, before turning around and firing off a few rounds from her mini-gun. When playing the levels some 'jaggies' are obviously noticeable, until the level starts up and you get into the thick of things, it moves at such a fast pace it would take the most scrupulous person to notice any at all, so it really doesn't detract from the overall presentation of the game. After all is said and done, how good does the game look? Only the word impressive can come to mind.

Map Maker:

Still not excited? Well, to really whet our appetites for this game, Free Radical has included the most simple and easy Map Making feature ever made for any game, nether lone a FPS. Making a map is a simple process, go into Arcade, and when choosing your map keep going until you find Map Maker and it gives you a couple of options, Load Map, Edit Map, Create New Map. By Editing Map, you can choose to edit one of many maps already made for you. Clicking on Create a New Map will take you to the map-making screen. In here you can choose from over a dozen of pre-determined rooms. Your map can be up to eight levels high but can only be made up of a certain number rooms limiting how big your level can actually be. After your rooms are set you can choose to preview it, don't like the way it looks? Just change the texture setting and the world you created will hardly be recognisable. You can then choose to lay down spawn spots, weapons, health, armor, bag locations, and lighting. Then save your map to your memory card. When saving your map it saves the skeletal structure of your map, meaning you can save literally hundreds of different maps to one memory card. The whole process of making a complete map ready for battle takes about 15 minutes, it's that simple.

Controls:

The control for Time Splitters is a major issue, and it is recommended you play Story Mode with the Default controls first to see how you like them. Basically, the default controls are your standard Unreal Tournament controls converted onto a PS2 controller. Left analog stick controls your movement, pushing up moves you forward, pushing down moves you back, left and right strafe/side-step left and right. Your right analog stick acts as the mouse in Unreal Tournament, whereas it does all your aiming and turning. With the analog sticks compulsory and tying up your thumbs, the firs buttons have been placed conveniently up on the shoulder buttons. R2 is Primary Fire, R2 is secondary fire, L1 toggles crouch on/off and L2 puts the crosshair up making it easier to aim. On the D-Pad hitting left changes weapons backwards, hitting right changes weapons forwards. While in 'AIM' mode (L2) pushing up zooms in and pushing down zooms out (as long as the weapon has a scope). Triangle button re-loads and X activates the occasional switch you may come across. I found this to be, possibly the best control set-up to ever come across for a FPS and I'm sure many more games in the future will use it, however, if you don't like it, there are many other control set-ups available.

Anything Else

The sound in the game is very good and the music fits the game's corny B-Grade movie approach to the levels. Each of the characters during the game has their sets of voices to use during game play and is a nice way to tell whom you are shooting. The guns sound great and add nice atmosphere, however the guns in the game really do lack imagination and are pretty much just the standard guns straight out of Goldeneye. But their variety is a nice touch as they date from different times, such as a blunderbuss for levels in the past, and sci-fi pistols and rifles for the future. If your expecting weapons straight out of Goldeneye and a couple from Perfect Dark thenyou'll probably still be disappointed. One might consider it, the only real flaw of the game.

Game Play - 10 Fast and furious, the game was made for Deathmatch and does it better than any game before it
Graphics - 8 Huge levels, nice characters, and great frame rate Sound - 8 Does the job
Longevity - 10 A score of 10/10 really doesn't justify it, you will be playing this until PS3
Control - 9 The perfect console controls, would be good if it was mouse and keyboard compatible though
Storyline - 1 Well, it mentions something on the back of the case
Presentation - 9 Easy to navigate menus, would be good if you didn't have to scroll through every map to find the right one
OVERALL - 95/100 Arguably the best game on the system so far, a recommended purchase, you wont regret it