TimeSplitters: Future Perfect Review

I hate to think that someone loses legitimacy for their personal preferences. If I were to tell you that I’d rather play TimeSplitters: Future Perfect’s multi-player over Halo 2, you’d say that I shouldn’t be writing reviews. I guess that’s the great thing about reviews; they’re nothing but the writer’s opinions and personal observations. When I say that I’d rather play Future Perfect than Halo 2, keep in mind that it’s my opinion, just like you disagreeing with that opinion is your opinion.

With that said, Future Perfect is more of a frantic shooter akin to Unreal, and feels like a cousin to the classic N64 shooter GoldenEye, where Halo 2 is more of a sci-fi FPS with true-to-life physics. The fast gameplay may catch some off guard. Once adjustments are made though, Future Perfect plays much like your standard FPS, as far as controls.

You’ll take the role of Cortez, a below-average IQ bald agent in charge of recovering the time crystals. It seems a doctor has obtained them, and is using them to manipulate time. Your job is to put an end to it by capping him. That’s not to say you won’t do time manipulation yourself. In the early going, it feels a bit odd, but the time paradoxes in the game are a creative take on the series, if not an excuse for the developers to slack on cut-scenes.

As you’re playing as Cortez, your future self will appear, for instance, to get a lift on a tank. Once you drop him off at the endpoint, you’ll end up going a different direction, and then find your past self pulling up with the same tank that you drove off with. You’ll get in it, man the tank’s guns, and exit at the end where your future self had gotten off. In one of the later levels, a puzzle will need to be solved to open a door. The problem is, you’ll need assistance from security bots. While you’re hammering away at the door, you (the future you) will be fighting off security. This will repeat until the door opens.

I suppose it would be best for me to warn those viewing this that the single-player experience should not be played by anyone under the age intended. The violence in Future Perfect is graphic at times, with blood splattering all over, and heads rolling. I actually managed to gross out my aunt when the cow carcasses began running around in the mansion level.

For owners across all consoles you have an overabundance of both single and multi-player game modes to choose from. To start, you have the Cortez-driven story mode. This can be played in both single-player and co-op (two players). Single-player offerings also extend into the ‘League’, a series of events, such as deathmatch, where you must meet a goal to achieve an award, such as unlockable character, cheats, etc. Let me give an example of one of these League matches. In one, I was given a sniper rifle, with an open snow-covered field with ravaging moose herding your direction. Snipe them at the head to stop them in their tracks. Achieve 35 kills and you’ll walk away with a Gold.

Multi-player offerings are actually also single-player offerings. Even if you’re playing alone, you can still set a game up to where you play against bots. Better yet, if you own the PS2 or Xbox version, you can take your game online, fully customizable. For the Cube owners though, rest assured that there are plenty of offline multi-player goodies to be distributed. In fact, there are 150 playable characters and over 10 maps, with modes varying from your standard deathmatch, capture-the-whatever, vampire, virus, elimination (set death limit), among others. Did I also mention that you can create your own multi-player maps?

When it comes down to it, TimeSplitters: Future Perfect stands well against nearly all other shooters available today on Xbox, and most definitely on GCN and PS2. The multi-player experience alone makes the game worth it, but the added features, such as the League, add to what amounts to a very long couple weeks of gameplay, possibly months. If you have an affixation with first-person shooters, Free Radical delivered a product worth buying.