Timesplitters: Future Perfect Review(updated)

Timesplitters Future Perfect was a game I played back in around 2016 when I was trying to complete all the PS2 games I bought back at a local Flea Market back in 2012. I replayed on emulator back in 2022 and now it's been added to the PS Premium Classics section and I decided to play the game for a 3rd time and I had a blast playing it yet again sure the shooting mechanics might not be the deepest of all time but if you want to play that has charm and is great fun to play moment to moment, then you really can't go wrong with Future Perfect.

The sound design and damage animations were already great but the addition of blood splatter when enemies get shot makes the combat even more satisfying so while the much of the shooting might consist of you fighting hitscan machine gun enemies, the act of shooting and hitting them just feels so graitfying that it can feel very stimulating in the moment. I just love unloading an entire round of bullets on to an enemy and seeing all the exaggerated animations and blood splatter.

There is an actual overarching plot this time and it's surprisingly well written for an fps, the character interactions are funny and Cortez in general feels like he is a parody of the badass space marine protagonist that is so often seen in FPS games. It also makes repeating sections of levels compelling since it's tied to the story and it's interesting play out events you already experienced since they were a mystery and you get to eventually play it out.

The OST is still pretty good, but not as good as TS2's. I also like how there are more checkpoints and that health is actually properly spaced out throughout all the levels. I can actually play this game on Normal difficulty.

The additions of dedicated grenade throw and a melee attack button are an obvious inspiration from the Halo series, grenade throwing gets some good use with you throwing them to defeat some tankier enemies, it's especially useful during the late game when robots gets introduced or to thin out some of the enemies when the enemy count starts to get higher.

Two massive improvements over TS2 is that there is a dedicated targeting ridicule now so lining up my shots and getting headshots doesn't feel like a game of luck and snipers work properly.

Now, the issues, first, Anya's commentary while can be funny, it can also be very grating in that she can point out the balant obvious and the game can be very hand holdy in general comapred to TS2. The Gravity Gun like arm thing barely gets enough use and felt like it didn't need to be in the game at all. It's good for getting the occasional secret armor and health pick up but that's about it. I wish there were some more secnarios with it.

The vehicle sections while decent, does feel like they were kind of borrowing from Halo for the sake of it since there are probably about 2-3 vehicle sections the whole game, they are "okay" but like the Gravity Gun arm glove, I would've liked some more situations featuring them.

The titular Timesplitters are irritating to fight since their projectiles always home in on you and they keep darting around the map and they take an insane amount of damage to kill, the penultimate sniping section might be the hardest part of the game due to how weak your sniper rifle is and how big of damage sponges the Timesplitters can be.

This might not be an issue depending on your point of view, but the game's campaign feels like it adopted the Half Life approach rather than TS2's Goldeneye and Perfect Dark inspired objective system. So the single player can feel more scripted and linear when compared to TS2's approach of, "here's the level and do the objectives in mostly whatever order you want". I might prefer the Half Life style since the objective system sort of feel like it's wasting when you just miss one objective and then look around just to beat the level.

At the same time, having played TS2 again, while TS3 has the issue with the one off mechanics due to the nature of the idea of time hopping, the various themes and mechanics going on for two rather than one, certain ideas can feel like you get to play around with them by comparison. The energy gun in one of the later levels at the very least gets introduced to you and you get to play around with it more to destroy shields and contraptations by comparison to TS2 where stuff like environmental objects being used for level progression or puzzles only happens once. The warm hole sections in TS3 pop up enough that not only adds to the story but it feels moderately fleshed out due to it being a recourring theme in the levels even the flamethrower in the Haunted House mission feels like I'm encouraged to use to save ammo with it plus the level itself being longer where if this was TS2, the level would be short and on top of being a one off.

Overall, TS3 is still a really good game that I enjoy yet again for a 3rd time, it just nails the moment to moment gameplay while also having a good story.