Favourite Video Games #8 - TimeSplitters 2

Time to shift to the first person shooter territory, with this classic from the GoldenEye 007 development team. I've not played the first TimeSplitters, as it was a PS2 exclusive and I had a GameCube, but TimeSplitters 2 very much impressed me.

In 2401, a race of aliens known as the TimeSplitters have waged war on humanity - pushing them to brink of extinction by taking their war into the past. We follow Sergeant Cortez as he seeks to recover the Time Crystals used by the TimeSplitters in order to turn the tables on them - a quest which takes him through history to recover them.

Each mission is relatively self-contained, with Cortez jumping into someone else (which has been compared to the series Quantum Leap, but I haven't seen that), and fulfilling different objectives in addition to recovering the Time Crystals. Settings include infiltrating a biological weapons facility beneath a Siberian dam in 1990 (a tribute to GoldenEye), an Untouchables-esque story in 1930s Chicago, and a Hammer Horror tribute set in 1890s Paris.

The GameCube version isn't online, but is great for local multiplayer games. This can be playing the story mode cooperatively, or head-to-head in the massive arcade multiplayer. You can unlock more maps, modes, and characters through story mode, the arcade league, or through challenges. There's even a map-making tool.

The follow-up game, TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, was more of a mixed bag. The campaign used a more over-arching story, and was a bit more comedic. It's still a great game, but I preferred the second one.

A lot of people want to see TimeSplitters 4. I don't know, myself. Everything was wrapped up quite nicely in Future Perfect. But I'd like to see these games on the current generation of consoles.

Oh, and there are monkeys. Everything's better with monkeys.