Opinions on the TimeSplitters series?

I find this series of games interesting, because I feel that I myself have failed to give it proper recognition and appreciation over the years, despite the fact that TS2 was an excellent follow-up to GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark (although its simplistic design is a deliberate throwback to GoldenEye).

To this day, I still wonder what Perfect Dark Zero might have been like on Gamecube had Rareware not been bought by Microsoft. When I start thinking like that, though, I have to remind myself that TimeSplitters 2 is pretty much more than I ever could have hoped for in a sequel to Perfect Dark. Besides, I seem to remember reading that key members of the original Perfect Dark team left Rareware before the Microsoft buyout... so perhaps the prequel would have been mundane regardless?

Anyway, I'm just curious if there are more TS players on here. It's a shame that Free Radical had difficulties after HAZE (I can't comprehend the lack of creativity in that game), but after the whole "Crytek" thing, there has still been some talk of a possible TimeSplitters 4 release in the future... at this rate, however, I doubt anyone would care (except hardcore fans). Most casual buyers probably don't even remember what that series was... if they ever did.

As for me, I still enjoy TS2 and Future Perfect on Gamecube, and they are pretty much immune to growing stale. My favorite characters in MP are Corporal Hart and the bear!

 

I remember Time Splitters 2 and some of 3. I remember they had some kind of level editor where you could setup your own little scenarios which was cool at the time.

 

Yeah, the map maker is pretty cool. It was definitely a unique feature, and still is. Honestly, it was pretty limited in terms of actual level design (at least for TS2), but considering there was no real competition in that area, they did a pretty nice job.

It really shined when you were making actual story setups for you map. The "logic" editor was especially robust in Future Perfect.

I managed to make a level about investigating paranormal activity in TimeSplitters 2. I could never get the final objective to work properly, but it was still pretty entertaining.

 

TS2 is great, but even though I appreciate that you can play through the campaign with two players, I never had much interest in finishing it.

 

Yeah, I admit I wasn't very motivated to tackle the story mode in TS2 for a long time, but I eventually powered through it (once on single player, and another time on co-op). There isn't much in the way of "story," but it's still pretty fun. The arcade mode is obviously where it's at, though.

The story mode in Future Perfect was excellent in terms of humor/writing, so I've played through that many times with friends. Still, it isn't a series I'd recommend based solely on the story, that's for sure.

 

I don't think anybody in the world has finished TS2 lol, it's all about the frantic multiplayer action

 

^I seem to remember reading that Free Radical was planning to drop the story portion altogether from TS4 (back when it was, ya know... actually happening). I have to say, I wouldn't be at all opposed to that. Just gives more time to add interesting levels/game modes to the multiplayer!

 

I suppose there is the whole "TimeSplitters: Rewind" project going on these days... and apparently the creators are planning it for PS4:

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2013/09/03/timesplitters-rewind-in-development-for-ps4/

I must say, I'm not too interested in this. It's a neat idea, but since I still play the original games on Gamecube, I don't care about a "remake." Besides, I've read that they're updating or "modernizing" the controls. For me, that's not appealing at all. The last thing I want is a TimeSplitters game that controls like COD.

Anyway... it isn't like the original team is doing it, so... yeah.

 

TS2 is great, love it on the XBOX with a few friends. It's the closest we ever got to Goldeneye 64 in terms of splitscreen FPS.

 

awesome multiplayer, not played much of the single player, but it's like a continuation of the goldeneye / perfect dark style and i love it,

 

I remember hearing good things about them, but I've never played them. I remember seeing some pictures and/or videos and being unimpressed by the graphics, so maybe that's why I never got into them.

 

^Visually, Future Perfect is more impressive and "realistic." Both games have a pretty unique art style, however, and the weapon designs in TS2 especially are still quite appealing to me.

Still, it isn't for everybody. I would highly recommend giving the series a shot, though, if you like old-school FPS games.

 

Speaking of Rare, I just started playing Conker's Bad Fur Day again the other day. I love that game, and I think it was well worth the price I paid for it - which was a lot less than what it's going for now.

 

There's also TimeSplitters Rewind on it's way which should be good

 

TS1 was the best in the series.

 

I finished both TS2 and 3, what I really like about the series is the wide selection of weapons from future and past, makes it really fun

 

TS2 has fantastic multiplayer, but I have played right through the (mostly very good) single player game several times. Timesplitters Future Perfect (TS3) has a much better single player mode than TS2, I think, but a sightly worse multiplayer), and TS:FP is my favourite FPS of the XBox/PS2/Gamecube generation.

Yes, the mapmakers are very limited, but they are very easy to use, and you can make some great maps with them in very little time. For some reason, though, although the map makers got better with every TS game, each version lost a little of what made the previous version so good (i.e. TS2's map maker didn't allow for the precision placing of items in the same way that TS1's mapmaker did, and TS:FP's map maker's themes (the setting, the textures on the walls and floors, etc) weren't as good as TS2's). The real problem with the map makers, though was their limited memory pool - for some reason, Free Radical seemed to want to keep the maps compatible across all three platforms, so all free had the same memory limit, which was naturally the PS2's (as the PS2 only had 16MB of RAM, versus the Gamecube's 48MB and the XBox's 64MB), and so the XBox and Gamcube versions had the same tiny memory pool as the PS2. A real pity, as (especially with TS:FP) the map maker could make some great levels which the bots could navigate no problems, and in TS:FP you could even create single player campaign type levels.

 

^Peronally, I liked the map maker themes of Future Perfect more than TS2. I just felt that there wasn't a good "neutral" setting in TS2, and that made it difficult to do anything with lights. I would have liked the industrial theme more if they hadn't made everything green.

Still, TS2's map maker had seven layers or so, while TS:FP only had five. Also, I felt the music was much, much better in TS2 overall, and there was more variety for different types of levels.

 

I wasn't too big a fan of CBFD's single player game - yes it was inventive, often very funny (by far the most humourous non-adventure game I've ever played), and had maybe the best graphics and sound on the N64, but to me the single player game lacked replayability, and a few sections weren't too enjoyable (though many other sections were great). It was a great game to play through once, though (so that everything you encounter is new to you).

Some of the multiplayer was fantastic though - there are seven modes, and I've spent countless hours playing one of them (War: Colours), and I can still pick it up, and play it (against the inbuilt bots) for hours at a time. It's utterly superb, I think. Beach is a lot of fun too, as is Heist (though Heist is mostly fun when you play against humans, as you end up not caring about the score, you just keep attacking one another). The other multiplayer modes vary, but CBFD ismy third favourite game of all time, just because of that one multiplayer mode, War: Colours.

BTW, you probably know, but And when Microsoft brought out Rare, Rare announced that they'd be re-releasing CBFD with all of the bits that Nintendo made Rare leave out, and calling it Conker: Live and Uncut (the 'Live' part because the game would be using the XBox Live! online service for multiplayer, and the 'Uncut' part because the game would feature all of the levels/jokes/satires that Nintendo (who were notorious for cencorship) had forced Rare to leave out of CBFD...). We Conker fans were very excited indeed. And we waited.

And waited, as the game took ages to appear.

When it did, it was called Conker: Live and Reloaded, and didn't have any of the 'cut' N64 parts in it. In fact, the XBox game was more censored than the N64 version (which ruined some of the game's jokes and cut-scenes, and by the way, who'd have thought that Microsoft would be more prudish than Nintendo?) and was missing at least one of the areas/game tasks from the N64 version. Also, the XBox game lost some of the visual touches that made the N64 version so interesting, and made some minor changes (usually for the worst). On the plus side, the game was gorgeous, maybe the best looking game of all time on the XBox, and far superior to the N64 version. But even here it was actually a loss, as the N64 version looked like a cartoon, whereas the fantastically detailed XBox game looked too good for a cartoon, so the atmosphere suffered.

And the multiplayer, depending on who you spoke to, varied from pretty good to awful. Many found it confusing and un-enjoyable, with lots of questionable design decisions (you couldn't even turn off the above-their-heads names of everyone onscreen, and since the bots tended to have long and unfunny names, this cluttered up the screen, and it did away with much of the N64's multiplayer's variety.

It was hugely disappointing. Which is actually a pretty appropriate phrase for describing Rare post Nintendo, sadly. There an interesting article about the Gamecube (http://www.dromble.com/2014/01/07/dolphin-tale-story-of-gamecube/ I found the link in http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?49596-Complete-History-of-Gamecube-article) and some Rare employees say that they were glad when they were bought out by Microsoft as they thought Microsoft would be less controlling than Nintendo, only it turned out that Microsoft were much more so, so much so that many Rare staff consider M$ to have stifled Rare's creative ability (and let's face it, Rare's games since joining M$ would certainly support this). In the CBFD director's commentary (which is brilliant!), at http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFP9r6vJL2qCCERMBP_ZWUEV0vaSL4rHf they mention how they got away with spending time sometimes a whole day or more, altering one little thing that most people would never even notice, in a game, whereas nowadays a programmer/developer/artist's time is so closely monitored and controlled by a project manager (who frequently doesn't know, or even care, what makes a game fun) that they don't have time to experiment to see if something new could be added, or even if something already in the game could be improved upon.

 

Future Perfect is, in my opinion, the best console-native local multiplayer ever done. Level editor allow great things to do.

http://www.youtube.com/user/admiralhowdy/videos