$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.