Timesplitters 2 Review

I thought Timesplitters 2 was never going to get a modern re release but it ended up getting one through the Playstation Premium Classic section along with the rest of the Timesplitters games. After playing this game again, I say the game is still "good" but it has a number of flaws about it that I think makes it not as consistently enjoyable as Future Perfect is.

The good things about TS2 is the sheer number of variety and locals the player will be going in and how it homages varies genres of film and fiction. You got Goldeneye homage with Siberia, a gangster film noir level with Chicago, a period piece with horror elements with Notre Dame, sci fi with Planet X, cyberpunk with Neo Tokyo, westerns with the titular level name "Wild West", espionage thrillers with Atom Smasher and treasure hunting adventures with Aztec Ruins. Every level has a weird motif to them with catchy ambient music and quirky cutscenes to go along with it. It's a game that is filled to the brim with personality.

The cartoony art style also adds to this with characters having very expressive movements and animations that still look impressive to this day. This also reflects to the gameplay too where TS2 technically isn't a game that is full of blood and gore, it instead has enemies reacting to shots in a very exaggerated way, they will react to getting shot in the arms, legs and head. The robot enemies have over the top explosions as death animations.

The guns also sound very loud and beefy and even the laser guns sound decently powerful too. It's up there with FEAR when it comes to sound design and enemy damage animations despite it not being as violent of a title.

The level design is solid for the most part, it has the Goldeneye and Perfect Dark style of objective system where you need to explore the environment as you are searching through the level to complete the stage. To give TS2 a massive amount of credit, the game isn't nearly as strict with fail states as Perfect Dark is. One issue that some can have with this style of level design is that you are playing TS2 for the over the top combat, having objectives where you need to look around to progress can seem annoying and the in the map you need to equip isn't very helpful since it glitches out a lot and gives the player a hard time on where their position is Some objectives like in the Chicago mission you need to drain 4 beer canisters but if you miss this and just ran through the level killing everyone and did all of the objectives besides that, the time portal won't open and you will be chased by the Timesplitters monsters everywhere you go which is almost like a soft lock, this can throw off first time players.

The biggest issues with TS2 and the aspect about that has aged the most are the controls even with the PS5 version of the game coming with dual analog aiming and needing to tinker with the camera controls for vertical aiming, the controls still aren't very good. For one, you have no weapon wheel or quick select option when switching through items and weapons with the d pad makes selecting them slow and cumbersome which doesn't help when enemies are shooting at you.

However the biggest problem with the controls is the fact that there is no targeting reticle when not in aiming mode so this means you have to rely on the auto aim to get consistent kills and when you are in aiming mode you can't move while doing it nor do you even want to since reticle is magnetized to the center and nudging it up, down, left or right will feel like trying to pull a large magnet away. Moment to moment gunplay can feel like a guessing game where hitting enemies in the head often feels like luck than skill.

Another big issue with the game and this is due to the whole theme of time travel the game has is the use of one off mechanics. Shooting cameras out with silenced pistols and using stealth? Only there for Sibera and Neo Tokyo. Using environmental objects as part of the gameplay? Only appears in Atom Smasher. Escorting npcs to help you do specific level objectives? Activating switches to open a time portal? Only in Atom Smasher. Puzzles and enemies that need to be killed using traps and fire arrows? Only there in Aztec Ruins. Using an electricity gun to help complete level objectives? Only there in Robot Factoy. Using gunpower as makeshift explosives? Only in Wild West. Using throwable mines to destroy things to progress? Only in Siberia and it's an easy to miss statellite.

The problem with all this is that most came to TS2 for the combat and all of these different mechanics can feel like they came out of left field. Don't like puzzles? Do it once and then never do it again which makes me wonder why it was even there at all. TS2 can feel really confused due it the amount of one off ideas it has and it can stump people since they were never there beforehand. I'm willing to bet anyone who starts Atom Smasher without beforehand knowledge even knows you have to pick up the fire extiguisher to progress furthur into the level.

Overall, TS2 is a good game and is a big improvement over the first but the game does have it's issues as a whole.