TimeSplitters 2

TimeSplitters 2 is a first-person shooter video game, developed by Free Radical Design, published by Eidos Interactive, and released in October 2002 for PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube. The game's story focuses on the efforts of a space marine who seeks to recover powerful time crystals from a race of alien mutants called TimeSplitters, which leads them to taking on the form of an individual dealing with their own problems across different time periods between the 19th and 25th century. The developers focused on expanding the story element following 2000's TimeSplitters, and features influences from various film genres, including horror, action and science fiction.

Alongside the story mode, which can be played solo or co-operatively, players can also engage in multiplayer modes and create their own maps. The game received generally favorable reviews from critics, who praised its improvements on its predecessor as well as its multiplayer gameplay and graphics, though criticised its story and lack of online gameplay. TimeSplitters 2 was later followed by a sequel, TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, in 2005.

TimeSplitters 2, along with the other games in the trilogy, were re-released on the PlayStation 4 and

Gameplay

TimeSplitters 2 is a first-person shooter that requires players to kill enemies and complete objectives using a variety of weapons and tactics in different predefined scenarios. Armour and health bars on the sides of the screen lower when the player is shot, which can be increased by walking over body armor and first aid kits.

The weapons of TimeSplitters 2 include handguns, rifles, submachine guns, shotguns, rocket launchers, a grenade launcher, various explosives, a crossbow, a flamethrower, a fire extinguisher and a brick. They are of many different time periods, from the historical to the futuristic. Some weapons have an alternate fire which activates a feature such as launching a grenade or detonating a remote mine. It is possible to dual wield some weapons.

Story mode

The main story mode of TimeSplitters 2 is divided into ten levels. Each level is in a different time period and contains a series of objectives that must be completed. Some objectives are present at the start of the level, while others are added during play. A few levels have secondary objectives, which are not required to complete unless on the normal or hard difficulty setting. Each level includes a single checkpoint in the middle where the player can restart if they die or fail to complete an objective (with the exception of the last level on any difficulty and the fourth level on easy). For each level, the player must choose from three difficulty levels. These difficulty levels not only change the strength of the enemies, but also increase the length of the level by adding additional objectives; for instance, in both easy and normal levels, there are optional secondary objectives, whereas in the hard levels, all secondary objectives are now primary and must be completed. At the end of every level, a time crystal must be recovered. After it is picked up, a time portal will appear which must be entered in order to complete the level. However, this is sometimes made more difficult by TimeSplitters that teleport to the player's location. In secret places of certain levels, there are cartridges of old school arcade games such as Snake, that can be picked up and played on the player's Temporal Uplink, the device that normally shows the map of the current level.[6]

The game's story mode can be played alone or cooperatively with another player.[7] When playing co-op, in order to balance the game, the two players' health amounts are lowered.

Along with the story mode, there are two additional single-player modes: an Arcade mode and a Challenge mode where a player is given a scenario and must complete it within certain requirements.[8] The objective ranges from collecting bananas to shooting heads off zombies. After the objective is completed, the game will end, and a medal will be awarded depending on the number of points obtained. Certain medals allow the player to play as new characters in multiplayer or use cheats. Cheats can be turned on in the options menu to activate features such as unlimited ammunition or the ability to shoot paintballs. Free Radical's website implies that there are also controller-activated cheats that have never been released. They say they like to keep things "as impossible as possible."[9]

Multiplayer

Arcade mode is the main multiplayer section of TimeSplitters 2. It can normally be played with up to four players with each player using a division of the television's screen. However, with a System Link, up to sixteen players can participate. System link was not included with the GameCube version. When a player is killed, they are respawned at a random location on the map with full health. Weapons, armour, and other items that enhance players' abilities are placed in several preset positions scattered about the map. The objective of the game depends on the mode selected. Four are available at the start: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Bag (a version of capture the flag) and BagTag (where a player must survive while in possession of the bag for the longest period of time). There are sixteen game modes in total,[8] But twelve are unavailable until the player beats certain levels of the game.

Several aspects of multiplayer can be customised, such as the weapons, the number of points needed to win, the number of minutes until the end of the game, as well as the music that plays along with the level. There is also a variety of different characters the player can choose to play as, each with their own individual statistics. Some characters are from the Story mode, while there are other more humorous ones such as a dinosaur and an Elvis impersonator. Up to ten computer-controlled bots can be used. Their appearance, difficulty, and team can be customised. The bots can do some acrobatic moves that the player cannot do such as rolls and somersaults.[10]

title	TimeSplitters 2
developer	Free Radical Design
publisher	Eidos Interactive
director	Stephen Ellis David Doak
producer	Stephen Ellis David Doak
programmer	Hasit Zala
artist	Karl Hilton
composer	Graeme Norgate
series	TimeSplitters
platforms	PlayStation 2 Xbox GameCube
released	8 October 2002 PlayStation 2, Xbox NA: 8 October 2002 EU: 18 October 2002 AU: 28 October 2002 (PS2) ‡R1R‡‡R2R‡ AU: 4 November 2002 (Xbox) ‡R3R‡ GameCube NA: 15 October 2002 EU: 1 November 2002 AU: 4 November 2002‡R4R‡
genre	First-person shooter
modes	Single-player, multiplayer

Gameplay

Story mode

Multiplayer

Plot

Development

Releases

Reception

Legacy

External links

References