I love media which features many different periods of time, especially if they're brave enough to include future time periods. Timesplitters 2 is always a title I use as an example of this, and while I love that game, I never played any of the others in the series. The original Timesplitters (apparently) doesn't have much of a story, the second has an overarching plot with some flavor text, but the third has an actual story campaign with voice acting and cutscenes. The story takes place directly after the events of the second game, and while the humor can be a little... dated, it does have its moments. Rather than playing as native people to each time period, you play the entire game as Sgt. Cortez as he travels through time to stop the creator of the Timesplitters. There are more levels set in each time period than the second game, which means there's fewer periods overall, but the selection they've created is really great. A 1960s train level, a 1990s haunted mansion, a 1920s underwater city, and even the speculative future examples I mentioned -- a near future office complex and far future war zone. The combat is really fun, although it's slightly ruined by being a twin stick shooter on the Gamecube. The accuracy you have with the second stick isn't as tight as you would hope. They definitely fudge the enemy hitboxes to help, but it's still rough. There's only one part that this really becomes a problem, and I would say it's the only bad level in the game. An infamous escort sniper mission, where your enemies are all invisible. It's horrible. That level aside though, this is a really fun game with loads of extra content. The series has been promised a sequel for nearly two decades now, and while I doubt it'll happen, I'll eagerly play it if it does.

Reviewed on Nov 11, 2023


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