Time Splitters: Future Perfect

Company: Nintendo
Publisher: EA Games
Developer: Free Radical Design
Genre: First Person Shooter
Platform: Gamecube, Playstation 2, Xbox
ERSB Rating: M for Mature
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Premise:
The premise for the player is to battle against Time Splitters while traveling to different points in time to find the Time Crystals

Character:
The player takes control of the character, Sgt. Cortez, who is an officer in the Space Marines.

Play:
The games pacing is easy because it is focused on basic gun play. Besides the gun play, there are small, simple puzzles which are inserted only to break up the gun play. The game progresses in a linear fashion and rarely involves back tracking for the player. It is easy for a player to just go through the motions that the game requires and still enjoy it. This game was made during the last gen era, so it does not support the wii mote abilities. The play rests solely on the gamecube controller set up which means that all the actions in the game are mapped to the physical buttons on the controller.

Engagement:
This game is very engaging for players due to its solid gameplay, comedy, and its incredibly well written time traveling story. The story is humorous because it makes fun of other first person shooters, and movies. For example, during the first level one of the NPC soldiers sees a mass gathering of Time Splitters. He then references a line from the movie Alien: "Oh God they’re everywhere, they’re coming out from the walls". Other humorous moments occur when one of the characters breaks entertainment’s 4th wall by saying something like: "oh man, that would be a horrible idea for a video game." To move on, the gameplay is all done in First Person view (except for the cut scenes) so you are only able to see what your character can see. This makes sense because there are a lot of little Easter eggs to notice within a level. Due to the time traveling part of the story, players are teleported to different eras in human history ranging from the future to the prehistoric age, and Cortez can partner with many different characters ranging from: a 60's spy hippie, a super robot, and a conformist teenager. This range of characters makes the game particularly entertaining because they all speak with their own unique dialogue. In addition, the gameplay is reminiscent of 007 Golden Eye, which has been rated as the top FPS shooter in history. Timesplitters gun fights work just the same, making for interesting interaction.

Story:
The game starts where the second game ends: Cortez in his current time period of 2401,and the space station he is at is being attacked by Timesplitters. Timesplitters are aliens that have waged a war on the human race. They travel in time and disrupt human history. In Timesplitters: Future Perfect, the game begins the opening scene with Sergeant Cortez escaping the space station that is being attacked by the Timesplitters. During his escape he crashes into Earth, and finds out that the Timesplitters have followed him there. Cortez then fights his way through the timesplitter army and reaches the base where he is informed of his mission. Cortez has to find the remaining time crystals before the Timesplitters do. During the missions in time, Cortez teams up with people from that time period, and himself due to time warp holes. Cortez finds out that the timesplitters were created by an evil villain named Crow. The last segments of the story deal with Cortez chasing Crow through a different future that he warped.

Behaviors:
The behavior for the character has already been created by the game designers, this includes: walking, running, shooting, talking, melee attacks, using items, and swimming. Since the range of behaviors available, the progression of the game should be much less predictable in its outcome and gameplay, however, since the levels are linear it detracts from the second play through.

Resources:
The resources within this game are typical of a first person shooter. The player needs to manage their health, ammo, bullet proof armor, and grenades. If the player runs out of ammo, the weapon becomes useless until more ammo is found. The rule is the same for grenades, health, and bullet proof armor. The resources in the game are easily found because most enemies drop ammo and health for the player to recover.

Challenge:
The challenge for Timesplitters is what grabs players right into the game. When starting the single player campaign, there are 3 challenge levels the player can choose: easy, medium, and hard. One challenge that was a little to hard was battling the Timesplitters. Timesplitters turn invisible when they fight the player, and the only time they are visible is when attacking this makes them extremely hard to hit. Their are also a few physical puzzles scattered throughout the game, but they are extremely simple, so they present little challenge to the player. Other than that, Timesplitters: Future Perfect boasts a great challenge that any gamer type can enjoy. In addition to the single player, Timesplitters has over 150 characters to unlock, along with over 300 trophies to collect. Along with the characters and trophies there are arcade style missions that are quick and fun, but hard to get a high score on. So this game will keep any player occupied for a while, if they pursue the game to completion.