Why does my shotgun recoil like my pistol?
That's TS2 for you or rather all the TS games. The graphic style uses a clean, almost-cartoonish look, that can support lots of models at once.
The game has a couple of modes to choose from.
In the campaign mode, you go through ten levels that range from different time zones as well as locations as you complete objectives within them. Of course if you want more to do, cranking difficulty will actually unlock more of the map to explore.
Objectives range from shooting X number of somethings, setting off X bombs, rescuing X number of maidens... Along the way of course, you'll be shooting at soldiers or whatever else shoots at you.
Soldier AI does not react in a realistic way. If you shoot him, he will sway to the left or right and shoot back at you. Sometimes they do a barrel roll. You can actually kill one of them and they will still finish their roll before going down. If they have an automatic weapon, they will only burst fire, despite guns again having no recoil. You can take that advantage and simply plug them up with yours.
Then you've got multiplayer modes which are the usual deathmatch, capture flags and king of the hill. There's also modes such as gladiator or virus. Up to 14, or 4 players and 10 bots can play.
The mapmaker mode is an innovation, at least to console shooters. You are given legos, or tiles, to mix and match to create your level. There are several themes that you can choose for the level such as alien, victorian or urban. You can control other features such as lights, weapons, doors and others. You can even make your own singleplayer campaigns with scripted events.
Finally, there is a challenge mode where you have to complete an objective with some rules such as killing a number of zombies within a few minutes. Beating the levels will unlock features such as new models and speaking of models...
There are dozens of models to choose from. You can play as enemies, heroes or monkeys. And should you decide to, you can turn on character stats, which gives each character model ratings on speed, stamina and several others.
The overall gameplay is simply run around, aim and fire. Yes, you can get different weapons, turrets and such, but that's basically the crux of the game. Having no recoil makes combat a matter of dodging and aiming, rather than fire controlling.
The AI does not play as a human would. They will shoot in bursts, even though their is no recoil. They will do slow rolls that actually prevent them from firing, while you can do so at them. They will strafe, but will pause again. And if that isn't easy enough, you can also turn auto-aim on.
The plot of TS2 starts with Sgt. Cortez and Corp. Hart trying to gather crystals to defeat the evil Time Splitters, who of course, are trying to destroy the world by going into time and messing things up. So you go through time and defeat evil personas as well as the splitters themselves to win the day. Of course each story has it's own background, but the overall theme is you as the good guy killing the bad guys, impressive.
I have many memories with this game. Unfortunately, I reflect and do not like the game. The story mode both lacks in length and the story does not go deeper than power rangers. Were it not for the objectives, the gameplay would be even more repetitive, which in multiplayer it is. The AI is simply pathetic, because it can't just hold the trigger with automatics, since there is NO recoil. Finally, making maps is fun... but when you play it, it's the repetitive run around and shoot, repeat cycle that appears in every mode.