309th played so far
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Platform: XBox/PS2/Gamecube
Year of Release: 2005
Developer: Free Radical Design
Publisher: EA Games
It has been a while since we previously covered TimeSplitters 2, a shame considering it’s one of Peter’s favourite FPS series.
Before we started playing this there was actually a bit of panic. It took a while to find the memory card that contained Peter’s old save game, which already had a lot unlocked (and as much not yet) – worthwhile for trying everything, at least. When I think about all the hours I spent on this game (possibly one of my most played games ever) I do wonder how much of the time I just spent setting people on fire with a flaming crossbow rather than playing through the story mode…
Our Thoughts
And that’s right, there is a lot to unlock. 150 characters, for one, probably more than I’ve ever seen in a game. And while many of them appear to play the same – there seem to be distinct groups that are reskins, though with different models. To be fair nearly all use the same basic frame (something you can really tell with ‘floating’ character like the snowman which bob up and down as you would expect a torso to do) but there is joy in the variety of people to gun down. Apart from the monkeys… who I abhor to this very day.
To unlock these, you need to play through the game several times – completing different levels of the story on different difficulties. There are also the challenge and arcade modes that lead to the unlocking of characters. These function much in the same way as in the previous game and rewards your ability to throw bricks and decapitate zombies… similar to Dead Rising in that respect.
With the aforementioned save game, I didn’t really get a chance to see much of that. But then again, single player isn’t the main enjoyable part of the game – based on Peter’s experiences and the description in the book – so I didn’t really get to see it. Instead, we focused on the multiplayer part of the game and that part is certainly fun. There’s a multitude of multiplayer modes, playable with bots or other people. The online servers (unfortunately) went offline some time ago, as it seems like the 16 player chaos would be amazing. Even now, playing mostly with bots, it’s just as much a case of firing at everything that moves sometimes.
The multiplayer modes borrow a lot from existing modes (capture the flag, deathmatches and so on), but put their own, more humorous spin on it. ‘Catch the Bag’ isn’t that different, but it sounds a lot more fun.
Add to that the nice option to run around as a monkey, and all has been said, really. Single player may be nice at that point, but just not as necessary. Unless you revel in the hackneyed phrase ‘It’s Time To Split!’. I know I do.
Final Thoughts
In a way, this harkens back to games like Team Fortress 2, where it’s all about the multiplayer fun. While there’s a story, everyone and everything has been telling me it doesn’t really matter – and in one way that’s certainly true: multiplayer is already a lot of fun, and if it’s anything like its predecessor, the story doesn’t set it apart enough, really.