TimeSplitters 2

by Gregory Moffett

Christmas 2002 was all about the splitting of time. Not only was I blasting my way through different themes and time zones in the excellent TimeSplitters 2 on Gamecube but I was also dividing my gaming time out with Starfox Adventures, but we’ll have more impressions of the latter in the run up to Starfox Zero on Wii U.

The combination of both games made it a highly satisfying festive period for me. The Gamecube was still in its relative infancy, despite already giving us great games such as Super Mario Sunshine, Super Smash Bros Melee, Luigi’s Mansion and Wave Race: Blue Storm by that point, amongst others.

Having not played a shooter on Gamecube by that point, I was certainly intrigued by how I would embrace the dual stick controls, especially given the fact that I had only really been familiar with the control schemes of Goldeneye and The World is Not Enough on N64. With that in mind, in TimeSplitters 2 my controls were set up in a way to essentially emulate what I was accustomed to with the N64 by using left and right on the C-Stick to strafe with down on the C-Stick to look up and vice versa. I’m not sure how that ever worked for me as it almost seems unthinkable now and not something I would contemplate going with now, despite me still finding the default Goldeneye control scheme perfectly natural on the N64’s revolutionary pad.

Ultimately, I find myself struggling to play TimeSplitters 2 these days. A combination of not feeling entirely comfortable with whatever controls I use and a general lack of enthusiasm for the genre means I rarely revisit the game, even if it’s to attempt some of the fun challenges that are present, such as beheading zombies or running around and chomping bananas.

The challenge mode was certainly something I enjoyed that Christmas and well into the following year, both alone and with friends, and there are still quite a few that I could do with going back to in order to beat them or improve my scores.

The main story mode, however, was still the main draw of the game for me as TimeSplitters 2 provided an adventure that has come as close to anything else to replicating the original Goldeneye 007 vibe, despite hugely different themes. It was certainly evident that several of the designers and programmers worked on both games!

There was a huge diversity in TimeSplitters 2 that perhaps wasn’t present in the N64 classic, though. From running around the Oblask Dam in Siberia in 1990 to Chicago in 1932 and the Wild West of 1853 to the futuristic Robot Factory of 2315, there’s an excellent variety in both the objectives and the locales. In fact, writing this is increasing my desire to play through it again as it has been such a long time!

Multiplayer was fun, with or without the often outlawed monkey character that replicated the height advantage of Oddjob in Goldeneye, but it was probably never played quite as much as it should have been (Super Monkey Ball wasn’t exactly an easy game to dethrone).

Ultimately, I found both TimeSplitters 2 and Starfox Adventures to be superb back in 2002 when I first got to play them but I don’t feel like either of them have aged as well as other games from my childhood.