Sound:  
The sound package is another “forte” (pardon the geeky music joke there) of the game. The guns have their own individual sounds, and even little details are included. You’ll of course hear the grunts of the dying enemies as you shoot them, but there are little touches, like the sound of a dying intercom speaker in the Siberian level, which spews out garbled messages along with a bunch of feedback when you blow it up. Very realistic. The bits of voice work that are in the game are very well done, from the gracious “thank you” from a rescued hostage maiden in Notre Dame, to the weasel-voiced mob informant that you talk to in 1930’s Chicago. While there isn’t a whole lot of intricate sound work necessary on a game like this, but Free Radical again delivers the goods in this aspect, solidifying TS2 on yet another front.

Gameplay:  
This is where Timesplitters 2 really sets itself apart from the crowd. The sheer multitude of options thrown out to you is enough to make even a game like Mario Party seem like a one trick pony. Needless to say, the multiplayer offers as much as nearly any game I’ve ever played just on its own, but I will delve into that in its own section.

The first option offered to a single player is the Story Mode. This is where you go through a series of boards, ten in all, and complete objectives in each to secure the Time Crystal and move on to the next board. Now, as I said, each board is distinctly different from the last, so the variety of environments, and also weapons, makes each board like a whole new game. Also, the higher difficulty levels add many new objectives and much tougher enemy AI. Just in the jump from Easy to Normal difficulty, some boards expand to almost twice their length, and in many cases, it opens up much greater areas within the levels to explore.

The difficulty also ramps itself up very effectively. On Easy, the game is just that, easy. I went through the entire game without dying. I failed a few objectives, but was never outgunned to the point that I was killed. Now, I am a damn good player, but most games will never be so easy that I can go through in one sitting without dying. Normal, however, is a suitable challenge for an experienced player. I am up to the last level on Normal, but it has definitely been a very good challenge. Hard, you can only imagine how crazy tough that is. If the difficulty levels were high school kids, Easy would be the 75 pound geek that gets beat up by the D&D club, Normal would be one of the starting football players, and Hard would be the badass that rode a Harley in the 9th grade and slept with all the teachers and perhaps your mother. Hard would also make you watch the tapes of him and your mother afterwards. That’s how tough Hard is. So, there should be a suitable difficulty level for everyone somewhere within Timesplitters 2’s Story mode.

Aside from the Story mode, there are also the Arcade Leagues. These are sets of scenarios where you are set in a number of situations and you compete against the clock or a score to reach a certain time or total to get5 a bronze, silver, gold, or occasionally platinum medal. By getting medals, you can unlock more boards in the Arcade Leagues, and additional modes, characters, boards and maybe a weapon or two. There are three different leagues, of increasing difficulty, so they definitely add a lot of content for players to dedicate their time to, because everyone will want to unlock all the goodies they can.

In addition to the Arcade Leagues, there is a Challenge Mode. This is where you are put into a certain odd situation, such as keeping zombies out of a single room, collecting bananas as a monkey, or shooting pop-up cardboard targets in a shooting gallery style game, and you try to reach certain thresholds to receive medals, which will often unlock more goodies, just as in the Arcade Leagues. The variety, once again, is astounding. Every challenge has its own distinct feel, and some will have you confounded by how tough it can be to get the best medals.

Last but not least, there is the MapMaker. This is where you can put your creativity to the test, and set up a board to use in multiplayer, or even as a single player scenario to pit your friends against. You have control over a number of selectable tiles, and can even place objects such as lights, doors, and even enemies. You dictate what the enemies will do, what the objectives are for the map, and even where the weapons are found. You can also place respawn points for playing the board in multiplayer. It’s very thorough, and it is definitely a new addition to any of the non-PC FPS games I have played thus far. So even if you ever happen to get tired of the many boards you can play in multiplayer (which I can bet you won’t) you can always take some time to make one of your own that will add that much more life into the game.

Timesplitters 2 gives a player more options than most can even fathom. Whether the Story, Arcade Leagues, or Challenges are your favorite, you’ll always be working toward something, because there are TONS of unlockables. I can’t say what the exact total is, but there are in excess of 100 different playable multiplayer characters. The many modes will keep even the most experienced player occupied for hours upon hours, and that doesn’t even include multiplayer. It is truly a masterpiece of variety.

Control:
The controls follow a similar scheme from most FPS games of late. The control stick is to move forward, backward, and strafe left and right. The C-Stick is for looking/aiming. L brings up the targeting cursor. R is the trigger for your weapons, and the Z button will perform the secondary function of certain weapons. (For example, a grenade launcher on the Soviet machine gun, or the detonator for the remote mines.) The control pad is used to scroll through your weapons, and to zoom in and out when you use the targeting on weapons with a scope. Y reloads the weapon you are using. A is used to perform actions, hit switches, etc… B toggles your character from standing to crouching. X has no real function, so I guess we have to kind of feel sorry for the neglected X button, the red-headed stepchild of the Timesplitters 2 control scheme.

The scheme holds up very well, and after the standard (short) amount of time getting used to it, you’ll be flying around blowing apart your buddies or the computer with the best of them.

Multiplayer:
Goldeneye. That is still the game I consider the standard for multiplayer shooty goodness. Every aspect of it was a complete thing of addiction for my cousins and myself when it came out, and it remains the game of choice for settling household disputes among me and my cousins. I will pit myself against any person on the planet with Pistols and One Shot Kills on Goldeneye. That is how much time I have sunk into that game. Now, it would obviously take something of groundbreaking proportions to make me change my standard, but Timesplitters 2 may be just the phenomenon that topples the king.

The amount of players you can use is out of this world. There are many to start with, but you can pretty much unlock characters in your sleep on this game. Between the Story Mode, Arcade League, and the Challenges, every way you turn you’ll be unleashing new features, boards, modes and players into the Multiplayer.

With a hundred characters plus in the multiplayer, there should be someone for exactly the style of game you want to play. The characters are rated in Stamina (amount of life, I believe), Agility (speed), and Accuracy (Uhhh… accuracy). So if you want a fast guy, you can play one, but he/she may not be very hearty when they get shot. If you want a person who can soak up the damage in a firefight, you probably can’t expect him/her to be incredibly accurate with their shots. It gives a bit more strategy to the choice of players, which is something that even Goldeneye didn’t really have. The only real advantage to any player in GE was if some cheap bastard took Oddjob. Now, there are characters in TS2 that are shorter, but they’ll generally have very little life, so they are actually balanced in terms of gameplay, and not just harder to hit. Character selection is just the first of many choices put before you, but is hardly the tip of the iceberg.

Next, you have a variety of modes to choose from. Most you will need to play through the Arcade modes to unlock, but that is good, because it gives you a chance to get the idea of some of the more obscure and new modes they have added to the game. There is standard deathmatch, which you can set to a certain score or a time limit. There is also team deathmatch, which is deathmatch with teams, believe it or not. Capture the bag is typical CTF mode from most FPS’s. Bagtag has one bag, which has to be held for more time by a team to win. Elimination gives each player a certain number of lives, and whoever is left last wins. Shrink mode is a game where you shrink in size when you kill another player, and whoever is the smallest will be the winner. Vampire is a mode that awards you life for killing an opponent. Thief has a killed player leaving behind a “coin” type object, and whoever collects the most coins wins. Flame Tag has the player who is “IT” on fire, and you have to try to get rid of it as soon as possible. Virus is a game like Flame Tag, but the players remain on fire. The last person who isn’t set on fire is the winner. Regeneration has regenerating health for the players. Zones has several points within a level, and the team that controls the most points for the most time is the victor. Assault (one of my absolute favorites) has two teams on separate ends of a board, and the teams are trying to enter each other’s bases. Now, when one team reaches a certain “checkpoint” type area or completes a certain objective, they will respawn from there, and the other team’s repawn will be pushed back farther toward their own base. The objectives at each point, like blowing up fuel barrels, once accomplished, will move the team’s respawn up. So, there is a balance struck between moving towards your objectives and protecting your base from the enemy’s advances. It’s very fun. Gladiator is a mode where one player is the “Gladiator” and is the only one who can score points. Now, whoever kills the Gladiator becomes the Gladiator, and can then score. The last of the modes is Monkey Assistant, where the player who is in last gains a weapon-toting monkey or two to help them out of their bind.

As you can plainly see, there are plenty of options to pick from. The most veteran shooters will even find modes they haven’t played before. I mean, where else can you play a game with monkey helpers? The standard modes are rock solid and play incredibly fast and smooth. Even with four players and multiple bots in the game, the game very rarely suffers from the slightest of stutters in framerate. It isn’t a major complaint, and holds up favorably against even the most recent FPS on the Gamecube, Turok: Evolution. As I stated before, it will take a lot to move Goldeneye out of the top spot in my affections, and it may end up being a game made by actual Goldeneye insiders that inevitably dethrones it. Timesplitters 2 has all the makings of a classic FPS, and the test of time is all that is standing between it and a spot in my multiplayer Hall of Fame. A truly perfect multiplayer experience.

OVERALL:
Timesplitters 2 throws out what may be the most complete package of any FPS to ever grace a Nintendo console. The single player game offers more modes than any FPS I have ever played, the multiplayer is an absolute marvel, and the number of unlockables guarantees that you’ll be playing this one for a long, long time to get absolutely everything. Free Radical’s first offering for the Gamecube shows a hint of what’s to come, and if they can somehow find a way to expand upon this masterpiece, I will be astounded. (Though, I know they will.) Not since Goldeneye or NFL Blitz have I been this addicted to a multiplayer experience, and I have little doubt that the addiction will stick for a long, long time. Or, at the very least, I can now play out my fantasy of being a gun-toting Scott Bakula whenever I want.

 

The Lowdown on  TimeSplitters 2 Aesthetics: Awesome Control: Very Good Gameplay: Awesome Multiplayer: Awesome Sound: Very Good Innovation: 6/6 Lasting Appeal: 6/6 Overall: Awesome! "Top of the Genre"