It is 2002. Maybe 2003. At some point in one of those years, I was finishing up a work experience week for school when I was offered something for my troubles.
I'd spent a week in a small online electronics store (long since closed down), cocking up customer orders, getting lumped with sorting out used printer cartridges, and thoroughly wrapping everything in bubble wrap so that packages would bounce if the postman dropped them. I was allowed my pick of a game, for free, for my diligent (ahem) work.
Scanning the shelves, I eyed TimeSplitters 2, a game I knew I wanted to play having enjoyed the first one. It was also a game that was going for £44, which I remember being on the ridiculous end of prices at the time, or at least I think I remember it being so. I thought it was too expensive to easily own, compared to any other PS2 game, put it that way. So, obviously, I made sure to choose this game above anything else on that shelf and went home quite happy that day.
But what was I getting into?
Fond Memories
TimeSplitters was a first-person shooter with a sense of humour but was perhaps a little basic in its execution. It was the early days of the PlayStation 2, and the genre wasn't anywhere close to being established on home consoles. I played it through, I enjoyed it, and then news of TimeSplitters 2 would surface and blow expectations out of the water.
The sequel stands as one of the best and brightest shooters of the PS2, and while it found a home on the Xbox and GameCube as well, I have absolutely no knowledge of those versions.
But I do have knowledge of the time-travelling story, the four-player split-screen multiplayer modes, the arcade challenges and more. You got your money's worth with this one (providing you paid for it).
For as amazing a game as it is, I don't think I've played it since 2009 or so when we had our final multiplayer deathmatch. 10 years of no TimeSplitters. That's got to change.
How much of the story do I remember, then?
Fun Times
Cortez and Hart have infiltrated an alien space base in an attempt to disrupt their plans. The faceless monstrosities want to destroy Earth but aim to do so by travelling through time and altering Earth's history. Maybe they've run out of weapons in the far future.
Whatever the reason, Cortez takes after the aliens, jumping through the portal into our first level, a homage of sorts to the developers' history with GoldenEye 007 - a Siberian dam.
Some spooky things are going on here, with some sort of hidden facility off-limits to the guards. What could be going on down there? Is it worth the risk to find out? If you've not noticed the style of these characters by now, take a look.
The weirdly chubby gangly look of the TimeSplitters series stands out against the competition and allows for overly animated expressions and movement that help drive the not-so-serious nature of the plot forward. If you ever see the full line up of the multiplayer character select screen, you'll know how ridiculous the designs can get, but, great as it is, I'm not here for the multiplayer right now.
We're spat out of the time portal as a more period-specific person, a woman, even, armed with a sniper rifle and silenced pistol. Our objective is to retrieve the time crystal. Simple. But there will be some obstacles along the way...
Frustrations
As the first-person shooter was still trying to find its footing on anything with a controller, there are some peculiar things that you'll notice when playing TimeSplitters 2, as well as other games in the series.
Inverted controls are annoying but easily switched. The sensitivity of the analogue sticks is a little trickier. I've got a disc but decided to play it through emulation first. It took a few attempts to get it running, but obviously, here we are, shooting the wall behind our target.
There is, like GoldenEye 007 before it, a helpful auto-aim of sorts. Your gun wobbles and snaps on target, if there's something near enough to hit. Sometimes. Maybe I was confusing it by trying to correct it myself, and overcompensating or something, but the result was a lot of missed shots.
Each level has multiple objectives, some optional. I remember these files being important for some reason, but can't remember how. I'm not given time to remember, either, as my fumbling has alerted the other guards to my presence.
Further Fun Times
If you ignore all the bullet holes nowhere near my targets, you'll see the varied character models and their death animations. There's even a female guard there, look! And they say video games don't care for women...
Shoot an enemy in the leg, and they'll react more or less appropriately, stumbling on the spot and allowing you to take them out before they recover and return fire. You can pop these folks in all kinds of places, and watch their headgear fly off, their guns fall to the floor and their lifeless bodies thrown to the ground. Again, it's a little over the top, but it fits. This isn't a realistic shooter, it's a fun one.
I give myself access to the dam itself and am told that the power is out and needs to be restored. There are more than a few guards that don't like the fact that I'm here at all, but if you manage to catch them off guard, you're able to dispose of them through the glass and from behind.
The L2 button brings up your fine-tuned aim, which can be both generous enough to register a hit if it was close enough, and too accurate to the point of exposing the ignorance of these guards - miss a shot and you'll see the bullet whizz past your target, hit the wall in front of them, making the appropriate sound effects along the way... but the guards won't react.
Further Frustrations
As the level goes on, I make more and more of a fool, walking into cameras and getting into firefights with opposition coming at me from all sides. This is no longer a stealth mission, I declare, and I hope that I can get through the level with the low amount of health I have remaining.
Walking into a control room watched over by two automatic chain-gun turrets wasn't the smartest of ideas, but once I dealt with them, I was unfortunately utterly lost.
You've got a mini-map scanner thing, but you can only make use of it by cycling through your weaponry until you find it. If you've been picking up all sorts of weapons, using the left and right buttons on the D-pad to switch between them is not ideal, especially in the heat of the moment.
Right now, though, I had dealt with everything that once moved, and was left scratching my head as to what this scanner was telling me. Where did it want me to go? What do I need to do? Why can't I remember this level after 15 years or whatever?
Oh! You know what I do remember, though? Documents + Fire = Secondary mission objectives.
I eventually find the button I need and descend into the darkness of a secret dig site, eyeing the time crystal. That's what I came for, but picking it up doesn't complete the level. Not yet. It is at this point when I wonder what my actual objectives are because I hadn't checked them yet...
The communications dish was in the first section of the level, now on the other side of the river... Restore power should be obvious. I've walked through the generators enough time to know where they are, but how to turn them on... Access the top of the dam should need an elevator, I think, and they need power, so that'll be why I need to restore power. Let's go and do that, then.
Further Fun Times
I think I've just made my life harder, but I'm making progress. There are zombies and mutants and whatnot down these parts. What on Earth has been going on at this place? Luckily for my bad aim and dwindling health, they're slow-moving and can be swiftly dealt with via a headshot. They're coming from the dig site where our next objective has surfaced.
I've no idea where I picked up timed explosives, but it's good that I did because a couple of them flung onto this container did the trick. All we need to do now is get out of here, right?
Ah. Well. This is a problem. The special forces that have started to arrive will also fight the mutants, but they've got orders to kill anyone who doesn't belong, which includes me. With low health and lower ammo, I ought to up my game, perhaps by letting the mutants eat the special forces. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Until they trap me in a corner and duck, dodge and weave their way past some twenty-odd shots. This was a ridiculous fight. It was everything that was wrong with the aiming, all at once. I'd think I was aiming for the head, only to remove his arm, or shoot the wall, or the other wall, or for him to duck as I shot... I thought this would be the way my run ended.
But it wasn't, and I found myself armed with a flamethrower. Oooooh boy. It may not be the most useful of weapons, but it sure looks swish. It'll set all sorts on fire, and there are some objects in this storeroom that seem to serve no other purpose than to be shot at or blown up or burnt to a crisp. Satisfying, but not my objective (apart from those filing cabinets full of documents).
This was the exact moment the special forces completed an objective for me. Thank you very much.
A second later, this was the exact moment the special forces ended my time with TimeSplitters 2. Thank you very much...
Final Word
It might have come across as a turbulent time full of highs and lows, but above all, I think my main problem with TimeSplitters 2 was just that I was rusty on its particular way of controlling a character in a first-person shooter.
Maybe I'd have had more success on the PS2 itself, with a familiar controller, but I ought to at least be comfortable enough with this Xbox 360 controller by now, surely. I can't keep that excuse up forever.
That auto-aim is a blessing and a curse, though. You'll get used to it, and learn how it works best, I suppose, but coming from a decade of other shooters, both on consoles and PC, where they all do things better, it's a little awkward to go back to, and that's a bit of a shame, because it may end up getting in the way of a really fun time re-exploring TimeSplitters 2.
Levels take you across the world, from the ancient past to the distant future, and are full of entertaining moments and fitting weaponry. When you're done with the story, you can see whether a wild west revolver is better than a sci-fi rifle in the various multiplayer modes.
That's a whole blog post by itself, but I haven't yet touched it. I have good memories of TimeSplitters 2 multiplayer - which even came with a level creation mode to tailor gameplay to your own tastes - but I think I'll have to attempt a few more runs of the single-player offerings before diving in.
I can definitely improve, and must if I'm to make any progress. I've done it all before, a long time ago, and would like to see it all again somehow. I'd like to see all the varied locales we're taken to, the weaponry we get to use, the characters we get to play as and interact with...
I have no idea how long I spent with TimeSplitters 2, but I know it was time well spent. I was so into it that I had plans to retheme Steve Jackson's FRAG with TimeSplitters 2 multiplayer characters. I somehow captured stills from the game and mocked up cards in Microsoft Paint and everything. I was invested in the TimeSplitters universe, most definitely.
You don't have to be as invested, but there's so much to sink your teeth into if you want to experience one of the highlights of the generation. Usually regarded as the peak of the series, you ought to check it out if you haven't already.
Just don't be that guy who plays as the monkey in multiplayer, yeah?
Fun Facts
Tantalisingly, Free Radical was working on an HD remake around 2008 that, as we all know, never saw the light of day. When will the series get its deserved fourth instalment?
TimeSplitters 2, developed by Free Radical Design, first released in 2002.
Version played: PlayStation 2, 2002, via emulation and teenage memories.