I've been reading the very interesting history and fall of Free Radical. Free Radical, for those of you who don't know, was a software house set up by a few people who, having worked on the N64 classics Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, left Rare to start their own company, and Free Radical was born. They created the great Second Sight, and the three Timesplitters games, and the medicro Haze. If you want to find out why Haze turned out so bad, or how the company was bled to death by LucasArts, have a read of http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-04-free-radical-vs-the-monsters It really is a tragedy that such a committed and unique software house was forced to close. Still, at least we still have their games, and for me, Timesplitters Future Perfect (aka Timesplitters 3) is the best cross platform game of it's generation, and still really good today. Like Timesplitters 2 (and, to a lesser degree, the first Timesplitters) it has humour, very good levels and weapons, tons of playability, an amazing multiplayer, and a fun and easy to use mapmaker (and any maps you make can be played against the bots too!). My assessments of the games are; 3. Timesplitters (my least favourite), it has a good multiplayer (especially for the time it was released), but the single player campaign is simple and feels very tacked on. 2. Timesplitters 2, a *huge* improvement on the first game in almost every way, having a very good single player campaign, some superb maps in multiplayer, really good weapons, unlockable challenges, skins, etc. Many people still say that TS2 is the best of the three, and I can certainly see why. To this day, many people name TS2 amongst their favourite games. 1. Timesplitters Future Perfect (my favourite), this game had a much improved single player campaign, with more humour, a coherent storyline, and longer levels. On the other hand, the multiplayer was, I think, slightly inferior to TS2's, as TS2 had better overall multiplayer map design, and some modes that were removed from Future Perfect. Also, even though FP has a better mapmaker, TS2 had better 'themes' (textures for the mapmaker) making TS2's mapmaker made maps more atmospheric). Overall I'd advise any first person shooter fan to definitely play TS2 and TS: Future Perfect. TS1 is worth playing too, as it's still enjoyable, but if you only play 2 and FP then you're not missing much, they are both far, far better than TS1. TS2 and FP are both on the original XBox, PS2, and Gamecube, whereas TS1 is a PS2 exlcusive. By the way, it doesn't matter in which order you play the games, as there's very little story continuation between the games, all you need to know is that evil aliens (the Timesplitters) are going through time wiping out humanity, using time crystals, and you have to stop them. Anyway, if you have played them, which game was your favourite?
2 for me. I thought 1 was very lacking in most departments...but then I only played it after 2 had come out and I backtracked to check out the origin of the series. 2 was (is) stunning in pretty much every regard. Really helped that it had the feel / familiarity of GE and PD, that first level, I mean wow. Loved playing it with friends, mostly trying to beat each others challenge scores, times etc. Great fun. Also, always been a big fan of fixed health FPS (as opposed to the regen health ones), liked the challenge on the hardest difficulty setting. 3, tbh just felt like a slightly spruced up 2, but with little to no gameplay enhancements. I admit I put very little time into it though.
Future Perfect. I love this game. Black is still the best console FPS of all times, in my opinion (Halo, pls, read that again), but this is probably the second one.
Oh so they DID work on Goldeneye? I always thought they were similar games, it's probably why I enjoyed Timesplitters so much. If I'm honest I never played 2 and 3 very much, so for me the original was always my favourite.
Timesplitters 2 is my favourite, I never played the first game and like the second more than the third. Timesplitters games had awesome split-screen deathmatch, I remember playing 4-player with some friend's on the ps2 back in the day. It's sad that there's not much hope of seeing Timesplitters 4
For me the best game is Future Perfect... The multi-player was fantastic, with various game modes, awesome single-player/campaign, and great replay value.
