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| Title |
Timesplitters 2 |
7 |
| Publisher |
Eidos |
| Developer |
Free Radical Design |
| Genre |
First Person Shooter |
| Players |
1-4 |
| Version |
UK PAL |
Should be a hit
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The hype surrounding this game was phenomenal. Not something one would expect from a sequel to a very mediocre game. The team behind Timesplitters, Free Radical Design, comprised largely from ex-Rare employees who previous worked on the smash hit Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64. People were expecting great things from this team but were sadly disappointed thanks to a fairly cold opening. Free Radical Design felt that it was time to pull out all the stops, and the second outing of Timesplitters hopes to erase the bad memory of it?s predecessor from our minds.
The story behind Timesplitters 2 isn?t really of great importance. In essence you take on the role of a man who is travelling through time, who himself takes on different personas of key people through history. Your aim is to find the time crystal in each level that has been stolen by the Timesplitters, an evil alien race. Nothing too new here then. But the story isn?t really supposed to play a major role in this game as the emphasis is strongly on gameplay, and here is where the team of Free Radical Design has placed all their resources and come up trumps.
It is clear from the outset that Free Radical have tried to encapsulate the core gameplay elements of Goldeneye and this is evident in many areas, be it the way in which you move around, the way that you shoot your gun or the various mission based scenarios you must accomplish to finish the game. In fact it comes so close to the feel Goldeneye had, at times it?s easy to remember the fun once had on the old N64 classic. So in this case Free Radical has clearly accomplished what they set out to do.
The main game of Timesplitters 2, as I mentioned before, is about travelling through time to accomplish set tasks. Each mission is set in a different era of history ranging from the 1990s Siberian Dam (clearly an homage to Goldeneye?s first level) to 1930s Chicago to 2054 Tokyo. The range of areas makes the play styles vastly different and so in essence you are getting many different smaller games rolled into one package. However is both a good and bad thing in that once you get familiar with a certain style of play, you have then finished the level and must learn a whole new one. While this will then offer itself to a wider audience, it also limits itself by not focusing on one specific style. Players hoping for a Goldeneye game in every sense of the word will be disappointed for instance, as only one level in the entire game allures itself to that particular style. For my tastes I was not too fond of the science fiction style of play here so some of the levels became more of a chore to work through than actually being enjoyable. But of course that is only my tastes, others could quite easily find the range of styles to be refreshing and innovative, which it certainly is. The amount of care put into each time is remarkable considering each level will only get played for about 20 to 30 minutes each.
But of course single player is only one aspect of the game and those styles move over to the multiplayer aspect as well. In fact it is clear that multiplayer gaming is where Free Radical aimed to keep most of its players. A great deal of care has been put into making the game modes and overall feel of the multiplayer game fun and there are a multitude of options to make sure that you never get bored. As there are so many weapons you can also choose which set you would like, or even a mix. There is also a mapmaker included in the game meaning you can create your own multiplayer, or even single player missions and share them with your friends. This is almost an essential part of the game though as the multiplayer maps included leave a little to be desired. A few conversions of Goldeneye maps like the Facility wouldn?t have gone amiss, but the option is now there for you to create it yourself if you so wish. The characters you can choose are also here in there plenty, with more being unlocked in the single player mode. You can use these characters just for their looks, as is the norm in first person shooters, or you can elect to use their preset attributes which vary wildly depending on the character you choose. This is a nice idea and adds to the overall feel that you are playing a console first person shooter and not a PC game converted to a home system.
Indeed that is the games strongest point for me. It is a console FPS game, something you don?t see often and is pulled off remarkably, something even rarer. It never pretends to take itself too seriously and everything from its controls to its looks exudes a crisp quality that is hard to come by in console first person gaming.
And indeed the graphics are something that should be marvelled at. The developers have taken on a somewhat ?cartoony? style that makes the characters look like caricatures of real people. However the graphical engine used in the game makes the models look extremely solid and because of this the style is pulled off flawlessly. Some may have preferred a more realistic approach, but the style fits the game perfectly. The animation is also of notable quality, especially the new addition of the hit points. The enemies now react to the areas that they are hit, much like games such as Virtua Cop or Time Crisis and this effect makes shooting enemies an undeniably blissful experience (if shooting someone could ever be described as such).
There is nothing remarkable about the sound however, although there is also nothing wrong with it. There are a few areas where voice actors are used, and these were chosen well and again fit in with the style of the game. The music also falls into place with each level also having it?s own style of music and again, these are performed well, although nothing memorable remains (although I am fairly partial to the western whistle-like music).
The difference between the three platforms is also marginal and really only comes down to a few factors. The Xbox version obviously has the stronger graphics in that they are ever so slightly crisper and the texture detail is slightly improved, but the Gamecube has the fastest load times which is always a plus. How the game is played really depends on your taste of joypad as each system?s has its pluses and minuses for this game. The final point to make about the differences is that the Xbox version allows you to save your maps onto the Hard Drive meaning a lot more room for custom made levels.
It is strange to see a multi-platform game these days having so much quality, but Timesplitters 2 pulls it off. Everyone was wanting the next Goldeneye, but unfortunately this is not it and not until Radical Design or Rare are given another Bond license do I think we will see that. The reason being that Goldeneye worked on so many levels because of it?s almost perfect gameplay, but also the fact that you were able to be Bond and take advantage of everything that comes with that. This game cannot ever offer you that, but it would have been nice to see some more levels like the Siberian Dam to relive the nostalgic feeling of Goldeneye. Timesplitters 2 may not have the license though, but it certainly does have the gameplay and if you can look beyond the fact that it isn?t Bond (and you really should) you will discover the joys of this fabulous game. It has its shortcomings for sure, but there are enough options to keep multiplayer gamers going for a long long time. No, it isn?t Goldeneye, but it is Timesplitters 2.
Seth Powell |
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