The Timesplitters franchise was originally established in the year 2000 with the release of the PS2 exclusive launch game of the same name. It was created by Free Radical Design which was a video game company established in April 1999 by former Rare employee's; David Doek, Steve Ellis, Karl Hilton, Graeme Norgate, and Lee Ray. Now I only mention this fact because while at Rare those five had all worked on two of the biggest FPS's of all, Goldeneye and Perfect Dark.
So after striking out to create their own development company they used the skills they had honed on those landmark games to create a brand new FPS IP that was all their own. Thus, Timesplitters was born.
The first game (titled simply, Timesplitters) was released as a launch title for the PS2 (and was also exclusive to that platform). this meant that only early adopters truly had it on their radars and that the development team was still learning the hardware. Despite these early obstacles though Timesplitters turned out to be a decent game with a devoted following. Still, it was nowhere near indicative of what the second entry in the series would accomplish.
Timesplitters 2 is where the series truly began to leave it's mark on the genre and the industry as a whole. It's crisp, clean multiplayer was a true step forward for not just the series but the genre as a whole. The multitude of weapons not only in any one map at a time but also in the hands of any one player at a time allowed for a never ending variation on multiplayer gameplay.
The single player campaign was the first in the series to establish an overarching story that was maintained from mission to mission and into the next entry in the franchise. This also allowed Free Radical to imbue their protagonist, Cortez, with their trademark sense of humour. They did all this while sticking to the core time travelling idea established in the first game which is the premise that allowed them to include such a wide array of characters and locales.
The third (and so far final) entry in the series Future Perfect was just that. It was Free Radical's crowning jewel, the culmination of everything they had learned from the last two games, and unfortunately the most overlooked as by then most FPS fans had moved on to Halo and other series.
Ironically, this is where the idea for this article sprang from. The day before Halo: Reach hit shelves, in a sort of nostalgic nod to the past, a buddy and I dusted off my old Gamecube and fired up Future Perfect. After playing a bit of both the campaign and the multiplayer it became impossible to ignore the similarities between this 2005 game of last generation and modern day shooters.
Now obviously I'm not saying Timesplitters necessarily originated all of these ideas but it's contributions in making the leap from Goldeneye and Perfect Dark to Halo and Call of Duty are unmistakable.
There are the extensive post-game stats and awards featured after every round of multiplayer covering every aspect of the game you just played. Not to mention the extensive detail of your overall stats. All of this is tied to your profile, which can be saved on a memory card and loaded up on anyone's copy of the game, a concept that was unheard of at the time. It also featured a well rounded and functional Map Maker which was rare for console gaming.
Finally, there was the aforementioned Free Radical humour. In most first person shooters (now and then) it seems that the developers must choose between making a triple a title with no real humour at all or making a humorous shooter that's mediocre at best. Timesplitters was the best of both worlds. It was a grade A game worthy of a purchase on it's merits as a shooter alone that was also genuinely funny. Future Perfect in particular as the Mature rating allowed the developers to truly open up the jokes. It wasn't crass, just adult. The kind of jokes kids wouldn't understand even if they heard them but that adults would find hilarious. All of this took place in their wonderfully satiric universe which parodied classic film and video game stereotypes but never in the cheesy way you see today. It truly was a rare thing.
Timesplitters is a must play for anyone interested in modern day shooters and how they came about. Not to mention any fan of a good shooter or a could laugh.
Post a Comment