29: Timesplitters 2
This was my introduction to the incredibly difficult series of FPS known as the Timesplitters series. I bought this game because it was advertised as an heir apparent to Goldeneye and, knowing that Goldeneye had a reputation as the first, good console FPS, I figured I would pick it up and give it a chance. Needless to say, it managed to impress me quite a bit.
There really isn't much of a story to Timesplitters 2. Basically a race of aliens known as the Timesplitters have captured a bunch of these crystals that allow them to go back in time. Our heroes, Corpral Hart and Sergant Cortez, have been sent to stop them. When they arrive on the ship, the Timesplitters quickly take the crystals and jump into a time portal that looks like something out of Stargate. You take the helm of Sergant Cortez, as he travels back in time to retrieve the Timecrystals and have his sex changed...many...many...times. If you're wondering about that let me explain. Each stage has you playing as a character from that time period who Cortez has sort of...taken the identity of. So, for instance, in the first stage of the game, you end up taking the identity of a female, Soviet character and, in the first cut scene, watch as Cortez literally becomes this person. The time periods themselves have their own unique story established with the opening cutscene, however there is barely any attempt to connect them, making the story of this game a major weakness. The game does have a co-op mode for the story, which was nice to see since only a few FPS seemed to be doing that back when it was released.
What Timesplitters 2 lacks in story, it makes up for in the wide variety of multiplayer and single player modes that you can tackle. Single player wise, you have the Challenges and then a single player version of Arcade Mode with various objectives ranging from find these bananas in x amount of time to win this type of game against this type of enemy. All of these single player challenges can be rather difficult and that brings me to something about TS2 that must be mentioned. This game is hard. Not just mahogany desk hard, no I'm talking about diamond plated steel hard. I have never beaten the story mode on any difficulty beyond Normal (there's Hard and Very Hard after that) and many of the single player challenges I haven't even come close to beating. If you manage to unlock everything in this game, you are truly a god of console FPSs.
TS2 contains a ton of multiplayer modes as well. You have your deathmatches and Team Deathmatches but you also have a mode called Assault. This was a game mode where one team would be given a set number of objectives to complete while the other team tries to stop them. In TS2, these objectives are always the same no matter what map you choose, but they are still a lot of fun to accomplish.Another interesting modes are Flame Tag, where you have one person on fire and they try and run into another person, causing them to catch on fire and be it instead of them. Not only did this game have a ton of multilayer modes, but it also fields map maker built into the game, allowing gamers to make their own multiplayer and story maps.
There are some other things which need to be noted in passing before I can move onto the flaws of this game. First, the game allows you to choose from a huge cast of colorful characters that, if you leave this on, have different strengths and weaknesses. The differences in play between the characters makes Multiplayer a little more interesting and actually makes you choose strategically which character you are going to use. Second, the game also boasts fully customizable controls that allow you to fine tune which buttons do which on your controller. Finally, if you don't have any friends around but want to play through the multiplayer modes, the game allows you to use bots to fill up all the other, open roster spots. The bots AI ranges from horrendous to spectacular, so it can provide some challenge in any of the modes.
Despite its strengths, TS2 does have a number of weaknesses. First of all, there is no jump button. This wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for Halo's successful incorporation of such an ability into their controls. Speaking of controls, aiming in this game is just downright difficult. Unlike in Halo or other FPS where you move the cursor and it will stay where you've left it, TS2 has it set up so that the cursor will snap back to the center of the screen whenever you let up on the control stick that handles aiming and turning. This is incredibly frustrating and makes Sniping a much more difficult task then it actually should be. The multiplayer lacks any online play, though the PS2 and XBox versions of the game support system link, allowing for 16 player matches.
TS2 is still a fun FPS and was a great introduction to the Timesplitters franchise for me. While its story was lacking, I found myself enjoying the multiplayer with my friends or by myself with a bunch of bots. TS2 did its job, and made me a fan of the Timesplitters franchise.
