It's very rare that I would play First-Person Shooters in general when it comes to gaming, the only shooters I've enjoyed playing were titles like BioShock Infinite, Killzone 2 and Halo. But before I've played those titles there was a certain franchise I really enjoyed playing on the PlayStation 2 which was the TimeSplitters series, TimeSplitters 2 is still my favourite shooter and game in the series for its insane multiplayer matches, story plot going through various parts of time and the number of guns you can use.
It would be 20 years ago from this week that TimeSplitters: Future Perfect would be released which was March 21st 2005 and March 24th for UK/Europe. This was the third instalment in the series taking place after the events of TimeSplitters 2 playing the role of Sergeant Cortez, a time-traveling marine from the 25th century, as he attempts to go to the past to save the future. This does feel more like something you would see out of the Back to the Future series when it comes to time travelling and bumping into yourself from a different period of time.
Like its past two games you can make your own multiplayer levels and save them onto your memory card, plus this was a great idea to have in a game before uploading levels through online around the world like LittleBigPlanet. You can create your own rules and what kind of weapons you would have to have to lie around including what weapons to carry; I remember reading and seeing some good level designs that were sent to Official UK PlayStation 2 and Xbox magazine on some of the levels that were made by gamers. Online Multiplayer was supported for both PlayStation 2 and Xbox having 2-8 players which did make an improvement for people who want to play online and not having to go over to a friend's house just to play some multiplayer matches up to 4 players. The GameCube version however didn't have online support, but it still had everything else in the game.
On June 2007 a sequel was announced to be in development was which TimeSplitters 4, however, has since been shelved due to difficulties selling the idea to potential publishers based on Future Perfect's sales after it was released. Haze was released a year later for the PlayStation 3 which was a worldwide release on May 2008 but however the reviews were disappointing to both critics and fans, it had some good ideas but weren't as great as they thought it would be. On December 18th 2008 it was reported that the studio Free Radical had shut down, though it was later confirmed that the company had gone into administration, leaving 40 of the original 185 staff still employed. There have been rumours that a TimeSplitters 4 was going to be released on the PS3 and Xbox 360 but nothing hasn't been mentioned since then; Back in November 29, 2012 it was revealed that a group of fans were given permission to develop a TimeSplitters mod using CryEngine 3. The project lead by Michael Hubicka stated that the ultimate goal is to make it TimeSplitters 4, it was announced that the development team would include some of the original members of Free Radical Design (now known as Crytek UK). And as of last year it would later be cancelled luckily some prototypes were leaked online on what it could have been on the PS3 if you look it up on YouTube.
As of now, you can pick up the original game either on the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube at a reasonable price; the TimeSplitters would get re-released on PSN which included the main campaigns with trophy support sadly no online multiplayer, but you can either download them through PSN Plus or purchase so you've got two options if you want some 2000's nostalgia.
Have any favourite moments in the TimeSplitters franchise?
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