$20 game of the week: Timesplitters – Future Perfect (Xbox, PC, GC, PS2)

During the early part of the PS2’s lifecycle, the original Timesplitters emerged as a FPS game which would quickly challenge the norms of the genre.  It was designed by Free Radical, a studio made up of programmers who had worked on Goldeneye and Perfect Dark for Nintendo 64, so there was already a lot going into it.  It featured some innovative weaponry, a plot spanning several time periods, numerous multiplayer modes, and most of all, a map maker.

A few years later, a sequel came out for all current generation systems.  The stages were bigger, there were even more crazy weapons and multiplayer modes, and the map maker’s functionality had been expanded to allow players to create story mode missions.  It was yet another class expierence,  but still something was missing: online play.

Last year, EA took control of the licence, and released TImesplitters Future perfect.  The series now has a cohesive plot, and the levels are much more multi-faceted.  You play as Cortez as he jumps through different time periods hoping to trace the origin of the timesplitters.  In each period he teams up with a different assistant character as he completes his objectives.  More importantly, the series was online for the first time, and players can create maps to upload and download to and from the internet (except the gamecube version).  This includes storymode missions as well.  In fact, I have a few uploaded to Xbox live under the gamertag “screwfacecapone”.  Even though this is a conclusion to the series, hopefully Free Radical can create more innovative FPS titles on the next generation systems.