TimeSplitters
What happens when you take ex-GoldenEye and Perfect Dark programmers and turn them loose on the PS2? Find out inside.
Published: December 30, 2000
By now, the story should be semi-infamous. Members of the team that brought you N64 ubershooters GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark left Rare to form Free Radical design. Their first game? A (surprise) 4-player first-person shooter called TimeSplitters. See, one of the biggest problems with N64 shooters is the framerate. Nobody will deny that they rock as far as console shooters go (well, I will, but that's a different rant altogether), but the framerate was shoddy at best. And with four people shooting it out at the same time? Ugh, it was a choppy slideshow. Luckily the PS2 is just a wee bit more powerful than the N64, and Free Radical was dedicated to use this extra oomph to provide not only a buttah-smooth 60 fps for the single-player game, but when as many as 4 players were on the screen and 10 bots run around duking it out. Suffice it to say, they succeeded, and marvelously.
TimeSplitters is a simple shooter. A VERY simple shooter. While GoldenEye and Perfect Dark had amazing stories that mimicked movies or seemed like they should be one, TimeSplitters is nothing more than a blast-fest. It's one that drips style, but that's all you'll get, so gamers looking for a story-heavy, character-driven plot at the center of the action will have to look to the PC or the upcoming Dreamcast and PS2 ports of Half-Life. On the other hand, if you need to pop into a game quickly and just shoot some $#!* up, then you have your game right here.
The "story" as such involves the TimeSplitters, and evil race of time-traveling beings that have a knack for messing with timelines. They've decided ours is good for meddling, and it's up to you to stop them. Spanning eras from 1935 to 2025, you'll have to grab some sort of artifact from a certain place in the timeline and return it to the time stream. Okay, so this isn't rocket science. It's a shooter in the plainest terms, but it does have two very important things going for it: speed and looks.
At no point, in all of my many hours of stress testing as I reviewed this game, did I find a single instance of slowdown in the entire game. 60 fps was rule number one during development, and it shows. Granted, there isn't a ton of effects work thrown at the screen while you're playing other than various explosions and the cool respawn vortex, but this is a classic case of simplicity doing a perfect job. The character designs also rock. They have on odd, almost waifish look to them, like everyone went on the Kate Moss diet. It's really nicely done, though, and all the character designs are well thought out. Each has a little animation/sound bite before they charge off to action, and other than a groan or grunt when your character takes a bullet, that's all you'll hear from 'em.
Luckily, you won't be missing your character's look too much when you see the rest of the world. Upon firing up the first level, you'll instantly see the time taken to make sure these levels looked as well at they played. Huge stone carvings guard a mysterious Egyptian temple, their chiseled visages glaring down at you as you duck into the opening to the temple. It was important for Free Radical to make sure the settings for each point in time stood out, and they did a marvelous job, with little to no texture repetition from one time period to the next, and enemies that perfectly match the era. The funny thing is, while great, the graphics never really jump out at you in the way some of the current and upcoming PS2 games do. This feels like something that could only be done on the PS2, but it looks like a Dreamcast game. Not a bad thing, by any stretch, but if you're looking for a game to wow naysayers and cynics, this may not do it, especially if they can't grasp the idea that 4 players deathmatching while the framerate never takes a hit is groundbreaking.
The sound effects also do a great job of keeping everything in time-check. All of the weapons beling to their respective time periods, and offer up crystal clear bangs, claps, and booms when fired. The sound palette isn't stunning, but it never slouches either. The music is oft times a driving mix of light techno beats and ambient chords. The music just sort of seeps out of the background to tickle your ears every once in a while when the firefights stop. It's a great mix and, like so much of the game fits fantastically.
Unfortunately, the levels are often far too short, and are repetitious to say the least (navigate the level, blast all enemies along the way, grab the artifact, head back to the start point, kill the TimeSplitters that respawn along the way to stop you). Yes, beating the Story Mode gets you more playable characters for multiplayer, but that's not a ton of motivation. This brings me to another very important issue: TimeSplitters is hard. Really hard. For those that aren't used to the dual analog stick method of controlling the characters, just moving around can be a chore. When you throw in enemies that don't like to miss (and just plain don't do it on the harder difficulty levels), it can be too frustrating for some gamers to even get into. I've been playing console shooters for a while, and I STILL had my butt handed to me for at least a good 5 or 6 times I ran through the first level.
Speaking of level designs, should you feel you can do a better, your more than welcome to try, thanks to the built-in level designer. It's an amazingly intuitive system that was designed for consoles and works magnificently. Pick your pieces of wall, static objects, enemies, spawn spots, etc, and just go to town, then hop into the level to preview it. The ease of use for designing these levels is unlike anything I've ever used on a console. It's powerful, yet simple enough for beginners to just hop right in. And it's a good thing, too; the level designer saves this game from being a total bust after you've played through it once.
I'll be perfectly honest, after playing the hell out of this game to review it, I'm pretty much done with it. It's a good, solid shooter, but even with the 4-player deathmatch (which I'm not really a fan of), there's not a lot of substance here. The level designer keeps things interesting, but you'll have to find friends that'll fight with you on 'em. In all this is a sure-fire rental, a fantastic way to just kill time for a little while, but if you're looking for some real meat, you'll have to wait a while.
TimeSplitters is a simple shooter. A VERY simple shooter. While GoldenEye and Perfect Dark had amazing stories that mimicked movies or seemed like they should be one, TimeSplitters is nothing more than a blast-fest. It's one that drips style, but that's all you'll get, so gamers looking for a story-heavy, character-driven plot at the center of the action will have to look to the PC or the upcoming Dreamcast and PS2 ports of Half-Life. On the other hand, if you need to pop into a game quickly and just shoot some $#!* up, then you have your game right here.
The "story" as such involves the TimeSplitters, and evil race of time-traveling beings that have a knack for messing with timelines. They've decided ours is good for meddling, and it's up to you to stop them. Spanning eras from 1935 to 2025, you'll have to grab some sort of artifact from a certain place in the timeline and return it to the time stream. Okay, so this isn't rocket science. It's a shooter in the plainest terms, but it does have two very important things going for it: speed and looks.
At no point, in all of my many hours of stress testing as I reviewed this game, did I find a single instance of slowdown in the entire game. 60 fps was rule number one during development, and it shows. Granted, there isn't a ton of effects work thrown at the screen while you're playing other than various explosions and the cool respawn vortex, but this is a classic case of simplicity doing a perfect job. The character designs also rock. They have on odd, almost waifish look to them, like everyone went on the Kate Moss diet. It's really nicely done, though, and all the character designs are well thought out. Each has a little animation/sound bite before they charge off to action, and other than a groan or grunt when your character takes a bullet, that's all you'll hear from 'em.
Luckily, you won't be missing your character's look too much when you see the rest of the world. Upon firing up the first level, you'll instantly see the time taken to make sure these levels looked as well at they played. Huge stone carvings guard a mysterious Egyptian temple, their chiseled visages glaring down at you as you duck into the opening to the temple. It was important for Free Radical to make sure the settings for each point in time stood out, and they did a marvelous job, with little to no texture repetition from one time period to the next, and enemies that perfectly match the era. The funny thing is, while great, the graphics never really jump out at you in the way some of the current and upcoming PS2 games do. This feels like something that could only be done on the PS2, but it looks like a Dreamcast game. Not a bad thing, by any stretch, but if you're looking for a game to wow naysayers and cynics, this may not do it, especially if they can't grasp the idea that 4 players deathmatching while the framerate never takes a hit is groundbreaking.
The sound effects also do a great job of keeping everything in time-check. All of the weapons beling to their respective time periods, and offer up crystal clear bangs, claps, and booms when fired. The sound palette isn't stunning, but it never slouches either. The music is oft times a driving mix of light techno beats and ambient chords. The music just sort of seeps out of the background to tickle your ears every once in a while when the firefights stop. It's a great mix and, like so much of the game fits fantastically.
Unfortunately, the levels are often far too short, and are repetitious to say the least (navigate the level, blast all enemies along the way, grab the artifact, head back to the start point, kill the TimeSplitters that respawn along the way to stop you). Yes, beating the Story Mode gets you more playable characters for multiplayer, but that's not a ton of motivation. This brings me to another very important issue: TimeSplitters is hard. Really hard. For those that aren't used to the dual analog stick method of controlling the characters, just moving around can be a chore. When you throw in enemies that don't like to miss (and just plain don't do it on the harder difficulty levels), it can be too frustrating for some gamers to even get into. I've been playing console shooters for a while, and I STILL had my butt handed to me for at least a good 5 or 6 times I ran through the first level.
Speaking of level designs, should you feel you can do a better, your more than welcome to try, thanks to the built-in level designer. It's an amazingly intuitive system that was designed for consoles and works magnificently. Pick your pieces of wall, static objects, enemies, spawn spots, etc, and just go to town, then hop into the level to preview it. The ease of use for designing these levels is unlike anything I've ever used on a console. It's powerful, yet simple enough for beginners to just hop right in. And it's a good thing, too; the level designer saves this game from being a total bust after you've played through it once.
I'll be perfectly honest, after playing the hell out of this game to review it, I'm pretty much done with it. It's a good, solid shooter, but even with the 4-player deathmatch (which I'm not really a fan of), there's not a lot of substance here. The level designer keeps things interesting, but you'll have to find friends that'll fight with you on 'em. In all this is a sure-fire rental, a fantastic way to just kill time for a little while, but if you're looking for some real meat, you'll have to wait a while.
