TimeSplitters
A launch title for the PS2, this was the first game I purchased for it. For those unfamiliar, TimeSplitters is a spiritual successor to Goldeneye and Perfect Dark as many of the old developers from Rare split and created their own company.
The game itself is… dated. A lot of the levels draw inspiration directly from those two games mentioned. It was a great game back then and it still has some fairly groundbreaking ideas it introduced. The in-game graphics aren’t a problem, but you can tell it’s an early title by the menus and lack of options (which the sequel more than adequately addresses).
For starters, this game ran at 60 frames per second and still ran smooth as butter on my PC as well as my PS3. In fact, the speed is blistering and the goal in each level is to retrieve a “key” and return it to essentially your “base”. The frame rate adds to the fast-paced action and gets your heart pounding as to whether you can get back before all of the “TimeSplitters” start appearing and attacking out of nowhere!
The game also offered an in-game level editor which allowed you to create your own boards to be used in multiplayer (locally) as well as a multitude of playable characters a la Goldeneye.
As such the game is worth checking out but be warned it has a very short campaign mode. It truly shines with multiplayer, where completing the story mode levels on each difficulty will unlock more goodies for use in multiplayer.
An extra challenge mode feature is also included and is like the one in Perfect Dark: but with some fun twists, such as shooting at monkeys carrying watermelons or smashing windows by throwing bricks.
I also want to go out on a limb and say the entire concept of shooting heads off of a zombie’s body (the only way you can kill them in this game) originated with TimeSplitters as well.
Overall, this was still a great journey back into time with good memories of multiplayer games around the TV before online play became a thing.
