When I got my Playstation 2 way back in May of 2001, I was torn between what game to have to go along with my system. It eventually came down to three games: NHL, FIFA, and Timesplitters. Guess which one I picked?

After I'd successfully installed my console and was giddy as ever about my first real experience on a 128-bit machine, I slipped in the Timesplitters CD and started playing. Now this story is all well and good until about ten or twenty minutes and being slaughtered multiple times later that I threw down my controller in frustration of the game's awkward control design. But I wasn't about to let a $400 purchase go to waste that easily, so I kept at it. Two hours later I was mowing down the enemies like nobody's business. Beginners will undoubtedly hate this game with a passion, but if you play it for longer than a couple of hours, you'll discover it's not all that hard to move after all.

Even now in the dead heat of summer, "Timesplitters" remains the best First Person Shooter (FPS) on the PS2. I've played the decidedly awful Unreal Tournament port, Half-Life, and Red Faction. Timesplitters beats them all, although I still feel that the PC version of Half-Life and Goldeneye were better. The game was developed by Free Radical, formerly of the Goldeneye fame. They've assembled quite a game, despite the fact that it doesn't feel very polished. This is no doubt due to the fact that Free Radical wanted to get it out the door in time for the Ps2 launch.

Timesplitters features 18 huge levels set in different time periods in the single player mode. You choose one of two quirky characters before starting, and your goal in every level is pretty much the same: capture a special object without dying and return it to the starting point. Sounds kind of mundane, and after a while it'll begin to wear on you, but there are reasons to keep playing the one player game. By playing it you can unlock a ton of secret goodies, like new levels, races, and playable characters. There are the rudimentary three difficulty settings of Easy, Medium, and Hard. Pretty much everyone will tell you that unless you spend an ungodly amount of time playing the game, you'll usually fail at the Hard setting.

I think this game would have had much higher reviews had there been a deeper single player mode. Cut-scenes are nowhere to be found, and the most explanation you'll get about the game's story is on the back of the box. If these are the kinds of things you look for in a FPS, then wait until late September when Timesplitters 2 is released.

One thing Timesplitters isn't sort on is weapons. There's a weapon for every era of time that you'll travel to, including a Tommy Gun, Sci-fi Autorifle, Minigun, raygun, colt pistols and more. Most of them are very effective, and each comes with a secondary shot to inflict even more damage. However, if you're one of those people who loves to see gore and blood splatter everywhere, then you'll be disappointed to hear that Timesplitters has no blood. None. Nada. Zilch.

In addition to guns for every era, you also have enemies to match it too. In the haunted house level for example, you'll run into zombies and mutants trying to eat you. The enemy A.I. is pretty smart; they'll roll on the ground and hide behind corners to get you. When you play in the Arcade mode you can set each of their difficulty with a star based rating system. But on five stars the computers get really cheap, as in they can whirl around in a second and hit you between the eyes. Same thing for long distance shooting, even if your body is barely sticking out around a corner, they can nail you a little too easily. In any of the Arcade maps you can have a maximum amount of 10 CPU controlled bots at one time.

The levels are vast, ranging from a shopping mall to a spaceship. One of the biggest problems Timesplitters has is it's level design is very bad. The only ones worth mentioning are Graveyard, Chinese, Spaceways, Streets, and Warzone. The rest are forgettable, and won't see major playing time. There's just not enough open spaces in the levels and most of them feel tight and cramped in, this is especially obvious in the Castle and Village levels. I'd rather have a huge open area to fight in, with things like boulders and tanks to hide behind than an almost endless string of bland hallways.

But if you don't like what the designer's have given you, Timesplitters offers a unique Map Editor feature. Unlike the one in Unreal Tournament PC, which is confusing and very clumsy, here simplicity is what makes it the best. You'll literally spend days toying with this feature, I know from experience. You can place bags for capture the bag game, health kits, weapons, armor, and construct massive levels to play in. Again, the same problem that the designer levels had is apparent here. I'm not claustrophobic, but you can't have any open levels here either.

The real strength of the game is the multiplayer. Not since Goldeneye on N64 have I had this much fun shooting it up with three of my buddies over. Get lots of food and drinks because the mayhem and fun lasts an incredible amount of time, and it's never boring. Plus, the framerate continues to hold up even with ten bots and four human players on the screen at the same time.

The game isn't what I'd call a visual feast, suffering from some uninspired backgrounds and blocky characters, but it's still all right for a first generation title. The guns look great, and the characters have lots of detail despite being somewhat clunky to look at.

Sound wise, this game is a treat to the ears. The music in the Chinese level is amazing, I frequently found myself humming that stupid tune hours after I'd stopped playing. The rattling sound of the minigun and the screams the enemies make when hit is well above average, to say the least.

Summing up, while it's very apparent that "Timesplitters" has it's share of faults, the long load times and lack of a real single player story, but the multiplayer and big guns more than make up for it. Despite it's sequel is due out in less than a month, if you own a PS2 and don't own this game, this is a good place to start.



Recommended: Yes