Awesome.
I am beyond giddy right now. My Japanese History teacher is looking at me funny.
So I’m curious to find out if people who think Timesplitters 3 was good also disliked Timesplitters 1 and 2 as much as I did. Anyone?
I skipped Timesplitters 3 because I disliked the first two games so much, but after hearing so much praise about the 3rd game here at Qt3, I’ve always wondered if the love for Timesplitters 3 comes from liking different kind of shooters, or if 3 is substantially different than the first two games in some ways.
The things I didn’t like about Timesplitters 2 (and from the brief time I tried it, Timesplitters, the original):
- Very sensitive controls that couldn’t be changed. More sensitive than “10” sensitivity in the Halo games.
- Broken multiplayer because of different sized characters. So if you’re the monkey, you’re much less likely to get hit than if you play a huge big character. This lead to everyone wanting to be a monkey, and everyone constantly missing one another even as a monkey because of the ass-tastic super sensitive controls.
- A really vanilla unexplained plot about time travel and bad guys that’s not really even gone into enough to get you involved in the story at all.
It was one of those games that even managed to make Co-op play no fun at all, and that’s only possible if you get the core game mechanics wrong. Heck, your story and plot and multiplayer can suck completely and Co-op play can still save the day if the game just feels good to play, but the over-sensitive controls made even that part not fun.
I loved TimeSplitters 2 with the fire of a thousand suns, but it wasn’t a Live-capable game (if’n I remember correctly), so multiplayer for me was limited to splitscreen, and that usually involved booze and a general lack of critical awareness.
The single-player of TS2 was varied and fun, and I had zero complaints about it at the time. TimeSplitters also felt so much like my beloved Goldeneye, and was produced by underdog developer Free Radical to boot.
Caveat: I never played TimeSplitters 3.
I’m excited about a new iteration of this series.
TS3 is a same-screen multiplayer favorite in my house.
TS2, The Virus Gametype, Chinese restaurant level, All characters are obscenely wrong, in the sense they are all giant anthropomorphic animals. Hillarity, oh lord, does it ensue.
Played TS2 so many times. Got a little play in on TS3, whose plot wasn’t nearly as good as TS2, but still good, in my opinion, for what it was trying to do; be funny in a serious setting, and be fun to play. Both of which it was.
This is first day purchase, if not pre-order material, guaranteed.
Timesplitters has always been a welcome tongue-in-cheek change of pace from the Relentlessly Grim `n Gritty FPSs Starring Macho McManly. [“Och! I’ve got some guns heeere!”] I look forward to Free Radical’s next batch of cyborg monkeys and freakishly deformed hotties! To be honest, Haze seems like a step back for them, insofar as they’re entering well-worn “soldiers…of the future!” territory with it.
[Well, OK, technically you’re a time-traveling SotF in TS, but at least they had a sense of humor about it.]
One of the best parts about TimeSplitters is definitely the irreverence, but Free Radical’s not a one-trick pony.
When they tried to take their tongues out of their cheeks and do earnest story-telling with Second Sight, I thought they did a great job. The controls were a little goofy, and they got beat to market by a very similar game (Psi-Ops, I think it was?), but the writing and presentation were top-notch.
I know a lot of people don’t seem to care about this stuff these days, but I just hope it still has bots and 4 player splitscreen. If it does then I guarantee it will get more play time than any of the Halo games in this house.
Timesplitters (except for the original, which I hated most passionately) is an excellent series. Two and three both munched significant amounts of time.
As to complaints about cheatily undersized characters, simple rule: beat the shit out of your younger brother when he tries to use Robofish or the monkey except against the AI. Problem solved.
I always played as the Sargent anyway. Dude is a rock solid engine of destruction.