LO3: Task 1 - Review - Timesplitters 2

Timesplitters 2 Review

Price: £23.00 [Amazon] (depending on the store)

Platform: Playstation 2

Rating: PEGI 15

Developer: Free Radical 

Publisher: Eidos Interactive

Engine: Timesplitters Engine

Timesplitters 2 is the sequel to the original Timesplitters released in 2000. The game is a 1^st person shooter, reminiscent of games like golden eye and nightfire. The game features a variety of weapons at your arsenal that are fired from the hip from a first person view, where you are unable to look down the sights and have crosshairs on the HUD as an alternative.

As a first person shooter you cannot get anything more generic from a gameplay point of view. However the story behind Timesplitters is quite interesting following the story of an agent going through multiple time periods to collect time crystals from the enemies known as splitters. This narrative is easily Timesplitters selling point.

The game starts off when two space marines from Earth, (Sergeant Cortez and Corporal Hart) are sent out to a space station overrun by Timesplitters (main enemy) to retrieve the time crystals.
After they reach the bridge they see the last few Timesplitters take the time crystals into various time periods using the time portal. Sergeant Cortez jumps into the portal and thus the game starts.
When the Sergeant reaches the other side he is a different person, his character changes in each time period, which emerges you within the theme of the level and also informs the gameplay. Very little time is spent on character development as the game is very fast paced and the main characters of the levels are only shown once at the beginning and at the end of the level not giving you much time to create a bond with them. Even the main character (Cortez) is very expressionless and shows little to know feelings meaning we don’t see much motivation behind his mission meaning our interaction with the characters is quite poor.
The target audience been people into the series and time travel and FPS gameplay. Means that the main story is perfect giving you the opportunity to literally gun down who you please, as nearly everybody can be considered a foe.

The main production process for most of the games animation is motion capture.

Skeleton  - Motion capture

Animated skeleton – Render

Environmental Design – Animate it, render

As this is a FPS game mechanics like akimbo dual-wielding weapons enhances the gameplay allowing the player to enjoy mass firepower. Also the game features a variety of weapons even weapons like futuristic laser guns, miniguns and even fire extinguishers. This yet again enhances the gameplay allowing the user to use a variety of weapons at their disposal that change throughout the game depending on the environment.

The game requires physics mechanics as the game features weapons like grenades that require them to roll in certain areas and stick if they are a ‘time mine’. This enhances gameplay as it adds a realistic feature and allows the user more variety in their arsenal.

The main characters been Cortez and Hart are generic military soldiers as they are mostly emotionless and follow the typical ‘badass’ appearance with as they typically would. This appeals to the target audience as they get what they would expect from the genre. However this makes the characters quite weak as mentioned before that he changes in every time period so you do not get much time to form a bond with any of the characters making them weak characters. 

Each level of the game follows a shoot em up style of level where you dispatch multiple enemies throughout the level following basic level design. This can be a challenge on higher difficulties. There are also puzzle elements to the game for example: In the Aztec level the only way to kill the enemies is to lead them into trap doors, which the game does not tell you beforehand so you have to figure this out presenting a challenge. Also the game features challenge modes that allow you to do various non-story related missions, which are them rewarded a bronze, silver, gold or platinum medal depending on your performance.

These engage the player with multiple different challenges adding variety to the game making it easy to switch to different types of gameplay depending on your preference at the time. Competitive and co-operative multiplayer is also featured in the game adding even more variety allowing you to play with friends (back when games did that) making it a game that you can use as a social crutch widening its audience and accessibility.

To succeed in the game like any other game you must not die and defeat the enemies presented to you. In modes like the challenge area your timing is more important in some cases rather than your ability to kill.

The narrative fits perfectly with the gameplay as your mission is simple enough. All Timesplitters are bad therefore kill them. Meaning that nearly all AI is killable as not many friendly NPCs feature in the game (even they are killable if you wish to do so).

The gameplay does not particularly evolve as such, each mission follows a basic pattern. In that you are introduced to a character and his scenario, you then fight your way through the level to then solve a few puzzles which eventually leads into a boss fight. The level is then finished by you jumping into a time vortex to proceed to the next level. However the variety the game has it its levels feature presenting new maps, characters and weapons each time.

The target audience falls under the FPS audience. Which is by far the biggest audience currently (not so at the time of release). People generally interested in SCI FI and military shooters will also be included in this demographic.

The games main narrative is about time travel meaning it is a SCI Fi game. The game also features typical SCI FI tropes like laser guns and space stations. It falls under military shooter as the main character Cortez is part of the military and as I said before follows the typical military stereotype. This means the game directly appeals to the audience as it follows what you would expect from the genre and little funs twists.

For the time this game is no masterpiece with revolutionary games like Halo: Combat Evolved releasing roughly around the same time and games with bigger fan bases like Goldeneye: rogue agent  and Nightfire being its main competitor meaning games like this get pushed to the side. Especially since the original timesplitters was quite poor. So the game is average in comparison.

Timesplitters 2 is the first in the series to be multiplatform releasing on the Playstation 2, GameCube and Xbox (original). However the game is most suited to the Playstation 2 or the Xbox as they have superior hardware (and controller) to the GameCube. 

The games is dated, however if you are willing to brush the dust of your playstation 2 and give this solid shooter a go maybe with a friend co-operantly this game is a blast with fun shoot em up action. Which I recommend as a game to play with a friend rather than a solo experience.