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TimeSplitters Series

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Ahh TimeSplitters, I'm not sure if the ultra-hardcore realism gamers of Bohemia Interactive Forums have played this, but I have. All three of these games have spent up years of my childhood. TimeSplitters made by Free Radical or now Crytek UK is a game where you go through time saving stuff.

Time Splitters:

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Not much people heard or played the first one. The release was in 2000. The game's story mode can be played alone or cooperatively with one additional player. Taking place at nine fictional locations between 1935 and 2035, the story follows 18 characters' individual attempts at defeating their own foes and the TimeSplitters with whom they have sided. In each level, the player can choose from one of two characters specific to each mission, and must kill enemies as they move through the level to retrieve an object and then carry that object to the exit portal. After a player picks up the object, TimeSplitters, evil mutant creatures, spawn throughout the level and attack the player. In arcade mode, up to four players and ten bots can compete individually, or in up to four different teams in certain modes. The players can set choose from characters, levels, and weapons that have been unlocked by completing story mode and challenge mode missions.

The modes are:

Deathmatch - The player or team with the highest score based on kills and/or deaths wins

Bag Tag - The player or team that has possession of the bag for the longest total time during the match wins

Capture the Bag - Players must retrieve the enemy teams' bag(s) and return them to their own base to score points

Knockout - Players compete to collect objects in the level and return them to their own team's base

Escort - A team attempts to protect a bot as it tries to walk to a destination in the level

Last Stand - Players attempt to protect key destructible objects (including themselves) from the attacking bots for as long as possible. There is also a MapMaker.

Gameplay:

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Time Splitters 2:

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This one was more well known then the first game. The main single player portion of TimeSplitters 2 is divided into ten levels. Each level is in a different time period and contains a series of objectives that must be completed. Some objectives are present at the start of the level, while others are added during play. A few levels have secondary objectives, which are not required to complete unless on the normal or hard difficulty setting. Each level includes a single checkpoint in the middle where the player can restart if they die or fail to complete an objective (with the exception of the last level on any difficulty and the fourth level on easy). For each level, the player must choose from three difficulty levels. Unlike most games, these difficulty levels not only change the strength of the enemies, but also increase the length of the level by adding additional objectives; for instance, in both easy and normal levels, there are optional secondary objectives, whereas in the hard levels, all secondary objectives are now primary and must be completed. At the end of every level, a time crystal must be recovered. After it is picked up, a time portal will appear which must be entered in order to complete the level. However, this is sometimes made more difficult by TimeSplitters that teleport to the player's location. In secret places of certain levels, there are cartridges of old school arcade games such as Snake, that can be picked up and played on the player's Temporal Uplink, the device that normally shows the map of the current level.

The game also features a co-operative mode in which two players can play levels together. When playing co-op, in order to balance the game, players' health is lowered.

Along with the story mode, there are two other single player modes: an Arcade mode and a Challenge mode where a player is given a scenario and must complete it within certain requirements. The objective ranges from collecting bananas to shooting heads off zombies. After the objective is completed, the game will end, and a medal will be awarded depending on the number of points obtained. Certain medals allow the player to play as new characters in multiplayer or use cheats. Cheats can be turned on in the options menu to activate features such as unlimited ammo or the ability to shoot paintballs from guns. Free Radical's website implies that there are also controller-activated cheats that have never been released. They say they like to keep things "as impossible as possible." Arcade mode is the main multiplayer section of TimeSplitters 2. It can normally be played with up to four players with each player using a division of the television's screen. However, with a System Link, up to sixteen players can simultaneously play multiplayer. System link was not included with the Gamecube version. When a player gets killed, they are respawned at a random location on the map with full health. Weapons, armour, and other items that enhance players' abilities are placed in several preset positions scattered about the map. The objective of the game depends on the mode selected. Four are available at the start: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Bag (a version of Capture the Flag) and BagTag (where a player must survive while in possession of the bag for the longest period of time). There are sixteen game modes in total, but twelve are unavailable until the player beats certain levels of the game.

Several aspects of multiplayer can be customised, such as the weapons, the number of points needed to win, the number of minutes until the end of the game, as well as the music that plays along with the level. There is also a variety of different characters the player can choose to play as, each with their own individual statistics. Some characters are from the Story mode, while there are other more humorous ones such as a dinosaur and an Elvis impersonator. Up to ten computer-controlled bots can be used. Their appearance, difficulty, and team can be customised. The bots can do some acrobatic moves that the player cannot do such as rolls and somersaults.

At the end of each match, the results of the game are shown. This includes the number of points each player or team scored, the weapon the player used most often, as well as awards the player earned. There are nearly 60 awards present in TimeSplitters 2. Players are given them based on what they did in the match. Awards are databased in each player's own saved profile which also keeps track of a variety of other statistics.

There is also an Arcade League mode in which one player is placed in an Arcade match with pre-set bots and weapons. There are three difficulty levels of Arcade League: Amateur, Honorary, and Elite. Players must beat them in consecutive order. After a player beats an Arcade League level, a medal is awarded.

A MapMaker is also available that can create playable levels. Unlike the original TimeSplitters, levels for Story mode can be made as well as levels for Arcade mode. Created Story levels, however, cannot be played co-operatively like the default story levels. Maps are created by selecting and placing different pre-made tiles and rooms onto a grid. Spawn points, weapons, bags, armour, and objectives can then be placed anywhere on the level. There is a bar in the left side of the screen, representing memory, that lowers each time a tile or item is placed. When the bar depletes completely, nothing else can be placed onto the map. However, items can be deleted to increase memory. A theme can be chosen for each map such as Victorian, Industrial, Alien, and Virtual, which changes how the rooms appear. TimeSplitters 2 starts off in the year 2401 in the midst of a war between humanity and the TimeSplitters, an alien race bent on the destruction of mankind. However, rather than invade, they are using the special objects called Time Crystals to travel through time changing the course of history, bringing Earth to ruin. Two space marines from Earth, Sergeant Cortez and Corporal Hart, are sent out to a space station overrun by TimeSplitters to retrieve the time crystals. However, when they reach the bridge, they are too late as they see the last few TimeSplitters take the time crystals into the past using the time portal. Then, some other TimeSplitters try to break through the door to get into the room. Corporal Hart decides to try to hold them off while Cortez goes into different time periods of the past to retrieve the time crystals.

Upon arrival at each time period, Cortez take the form of a person from that particular period of time, similar to Quantum Leap. For example, when Cortez arrives in the Wild West, he takes the form of the bounty hunter Elijah Jones. When he arrives in a 24th century robot factory, he takes the form of a robot, Gretel MK II (2)

After Cortez retrieves all of the time crystals, he returns to the space station to meet with Hart. The TimeSplitters outside finally break into the room. Corporal Hart is killed in the ensuing battle. Cortez sets the space station to self-destruct and he escapes on his ship before it blows up

Gameplay

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Timesplitters Future Perfect:

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This is probably the most well known game in the Timesplitters series. The game begins in 2401 when the space marine, Sergeant Cortez, is leaving the space station that he destroyed at the end of TimeSplitters 2. His ship crash lands on the future Earth and two fellow marines greet him. the 25th century, befriending and aiding various characters (including himself) in their fight against villains. After discovering that the creator of the TimeSplitters is a mad scientist named Dr. Jacob Crow, Cortez embarks on a new mission to foil the scientist's plans by destroying his labs through out all of the time periods Crow had visited.

After making his way to the site of the first Time Crystal, Cortez finds Dr. Crow fused with a large bipedal robot. Crow destroys Cortez's ally R-110, leaving him and Cortez face to face. Knowing he can't defeat the scientist alone, Anya sends Cortez back in time a few minutes to when he first arrived in hopes of being able to double-team Crow with two Cortezes (and R-110, who was never destroyed as a result of the time loop). Crow is defeated, then Cortez puts a raw crystal into a device that causes a chain reaction that destroys the entire compound. Anya quickly warps the two Cortezes and R-110 back to HQ before they are all killed in the blast. They see the barren desert land restored to its former form; a lush, green forest filled with life. Anya labels Cortez as her hero and he remarks, "I know, it's what I do." The Arcade and Challenge modes both allow the player to unlock new characters, weapons, and new locations for Arcade (excluding league) that the player can then use in the game's mapmaker feature. Arcade and Challenge can however be very difficult and take time to complete. Once the player completes a mission the game automatically saves progress. In challenges and Arcade Leagues the player earns awards. Throughout the TimeSplitters series, the programmers field monkeys as playable characters in various guises, such as ninja, zombie and RoboCop-style robot outfits; one multiplayer mode, "Monkey Assistants," utilizes them as assistants to the player who is doing the worst on the map. A curling minigame uses monkeys instead of the traditional curling stones. Further, when players examine their "Player Profile", it states how many times they have played as a monkey.

Gameplay

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The music was kickass as well:

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The gameplay vids reminded me of Goldeneye.

The games were made by people who left the Goldeneye team and made the studio Free Radical who are now Crytek UK.

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I have all 3, and was hoping for the 4th. But In a way I'm glad it ended , so I wouldn't need to buy another console just to play it.

This series was one of only 3 shooters series I actually enjoyed on Ps2 console....mostly because it didn't come to the pc.

The others-

Mace Griffin

Red Faction

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The only one I ever played was Future Perfect on the PS2, but my God did I love that game. That Mansion level scared the shit out of my young self at the time. :p I remember playing through it many, many times. Ah, the good ol' days... Multiplayer was also fun as hell.

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I havn't heard of the last one but the 1st and 2nd were great. Still have the 2nd on Xbox, but it isn't compatible with the 360. Although this made me think of a similarly awesome game, Vigilante 8 on the N64, and just seen they have remade it for the 360!

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Great game, assault on moonbase EPIC. Wasted much of my childhood on this round my mates lol

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