TimeSplitters: Future Perfect (Xbox) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing a little more TimeSplitters: Future Perfect. I've only played two levels so far and I haven't even tried the multiplayer yet so I need to give it a little more time.

If you want to read part one you can CLICK HERE.

The 'future perfect' part of the title is probably a Perfect Dark reference, as the same people worked on both games... but it also refers to a verb tense that's used for actions that will be carried out before something else in the future. At least, that's the definition I just read. So "Free Radical will have released TimeSplitters 4 before Hell freezes over," would be an example.

Free Radical Design doesn't actually exist at the moment, the latest incarnation fell victim to Embracer Group in 2023, so the chances don't seem good. The new Perfect Dark sequel got the same treatment, as developer The Initiative were closed in 2025. At least James Bond is doing well lately, with First Light being the best received entry since GoldenEye 007. Turns out it helps when developers are allowed to finish what they're working on!

Alright, here's a bit more TimeSplitters: Future Perfect. 

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Previously, in TimeSplitters: Future Perfect:

Humanity's greatest warrior, Sergeant Cortez, won a victory against the nefarious TimeSplitters by getting hold of all the Time Crystals and bringing them back. Now the heroes can use them with their own time machine to send Cortez back to wherever these Time Crystals came from and stop the TimeSplitters before they started.

His first trip through time brought him to an island off the coast of Scotland in 1924, right next to returning TimeSplitters hero Captain Ash. The two shot a lot of bad guys together and then ran into a mysterious old man with his own time machine. He vanished, but he left behind a clue: a photo taken in Stanislav Train Depot on September 4th 1969, 45 years later.

And now, the continuation:

1969 - THE RUSSIAN CONNECTION

Cortez travels to 1969 and materialises right next to another returning TimeSplitters character, Agent Harry Tipper, who's a bit like a cross between Dirty Harry, Austin Powers and Cochese from the music video to the Beastie Boys track Sabotage:

He's a groovy spy from the swinging sixties who's not remotely freaked out by a space marine dropping in through a portal while he's in the middle of a stealth mission. Incidentally in 1969 the latest James Bond movie was On Her Majesty's Secret Service, so we're in the George Lazenby era.

Turns out that Harry's here to stop his own Bond villain, called Khallos. According to a transmission received Khallos has stolen a nuclear missile from the French and is planning to start World War 3!

So I should probably help him sort that out while I look for the mysterious time traveller.

All of my guns have disappeared again so I'm working with a new set of weapons, starting with this silenced pistol. It's a nice gun as it fires much faster than the one in TimeSplitters 2, plus it has a scope! First I'll use it to silently snipe this guard in the hut. Then I'll shoot these other three that are coming out of the building to the right.

Damn, I messed it up and they caught me! I took them out, I can carry on with the level, but Harry says that I was noisier than a blaze at a fireworks factory, so I feel like I should restart and earn his respect.

TEN RESTARTS LATER

Man, I'm just glad the level loads pretty instantly on an Xbox One.

I got it in the end though, wiped them all out like a ghost without anyone getting suspicious. The trick is to start with the dude that no one's looking at, and then get the one who's coming over to spot you hiding in the bushes. My reward for successful stealth was Harry saying "Pretty groovy work spacedude".

I'll take it.

I pulled the lever and got some picture-in-picture video which shows what I just did, nice! There's no quest markers leading me around, but the levels aren't that open so I'm sure I'll find my way there eventually.

It helps that I've got Anya to remind me what I'm supposed to be doing. Like right now I'm supposed to reach the water tower and rendezvous with Harry. He thought we should split up for a bit, which works for me as it means he's not around to hear me shooting everyone in the train depot with a reasonably loud machine gun.

Alright Harry, I'm at the water tower. In fact I've climbed up onto the water tower. So what am I doing now? And why did I just pick up a sniper rifle? And does it say "New Objective: Protect Harry Tipper"?

Man, this level was going really well...

Harry's trying to get across the yard in front of me, while I shoot everyone who pops out along the way. It's basically a 'kill X amount of enemies within the time limit' challenge, and the only way through it is to get good. Plus the little gits like to hide behind the wall at the bottom, where I can't see them properly.

Great, Harry's already at half health! The game designers thoughtfully placed a checkpoint just before the water tower, but they also put a short cutscene there too. Long cutscenes can be skipped, short cutscenes can't. It's not overly arduous to get back to this escort mission each time I mess it up, but it could've been less tedious.

Also they didn't put a checkpoint after the sniping, so I had to get my head back into first-person shooter mode and stay alive for a while before it finally saved my progress.

Then I had to do it all over again afterwards when I realised I'd forgot to record a video to get the pictures from.

Alright, Harry got us some disguises so we were able to walk right into the Bond villain lair. With these uniforms on no one suspects a thing, even though Harry could only find a female outfit (it's the 60s and anything goes, he said). You'd think that yelling the plan right in front of everyone out might have raised a few suspicions, but I suppose henchmen have to get to Khallos' train too.

Unfortunately the Blast door is sealed so I have to figure out how to get the power on to open a door (which happens a lot in these games). The trouble is that the generator is behind a locked door and the engineer has the keycard. Hang on, I think I have an idea...

I just followed the engineer around until he unlocked the door himself, then walked into the generator room with him, problem solved! And then I had to sort out the water pressure as well...

Now I'm starting to wonder would've happened if I'd shot him instead. I could check but it means loading my last checkpoint and doing it all over again. Okay fine.

I waited until we were away from any witnesses who'd blow my cover and then put a bullet just below his hard hat. Turns out that I was able to kill him and take the card without turning the whole place hostile, so this section really does have multiple solutions. Plus I've just found a car I can drive down the tunnels!

I couldn't resist deliberately recreating the Austin Powers car jam scene. Had to be done.

Things went a bit pear-shaped here when we blew our cover and the guys with machine guns came out. Then I inadvertently hit a checkpoint during a gunfight, so now I'm stuck with half my health gone and no armour even if I load. But otherwise this infiltration mission's been going pretty well! I even rescued some hostages.

Though I'm here to stop a nuclear missile and Khallos has it on his train... which is just departing the station. That means I get to do a first-person shooter train level next!

1969 - THE KHALLOS EXPRESS

I've done a lot of train levels in a lot of games, but few have had looping scenery as pretty as this whooshing by.

It's mostly reminding me of the train level in Soldier of Fortune at the moment. That one had a helicopter trying to kill me as well.

This time though I've got backup, from myself. 

Future Cortez has dropped by with a rocket launcher to fight the boss for me. All I need to do is defend him from enemies. Not my favourite thing in the world, but I'm in a good mood so I'm okay with it. 

The game was already fairly linear, but here I'm going from linear shooting section, to flashy set piece, to cutscene, to shooting section etc. The latest cutscene I reached showed Present Day Cortez (me) jumping through a portal onto another train in the past.

So now I'm over on this side taking down the helicopter with a rocket launcher, while my past self protects me from enemies. I'm pretty sure he's not a recording of my past actions, but it's still pretty cool. It's a bit weird though that this time he's the one doing the talking and I'm silent.

If you're wondering how this works in co-op, the second player controls Harry, who also comes back in time and helps out with a second rocket launcher. But you don't see him on the other train, so that's a bit weird.

Alright I've reached Khallos' personal car and now I'm ready to see what the maniac has in here.

I found a slot machine! 

This is a supervillain's train so I figured there had to be some sinister twist to the machine, like maybe grenades come out if you win. But I kept playing until I got three cats in a row and... nothing happened. No grenades.

And then I left the room and walked right into a trap. The doors slammed closed on either side of the hallway and they started pumping green gas inside, which Harry assures me is 'the worst kind'. Fortunately I've got a gravity gun device that lets me pull levers at a distance, so I escaped almost immediately (it took me a second to remember that I have it).

Then I got to drive the villain's robot cat around! There doesn't seem to be any reason to do it, but it's a nice extra bit of pointless interactivity.

Speaking of interactivity, enemies started rushing in here through the same door we did, so I flicked the lever to seal the hallway again and pump in the green gas. 

Harsh, but effective. 

Alright, I should probably sort this nuke out before it causes World War 3 I guess.

Oh no, a surprise timed puzzle right at the end of the level! I've got to make a chain to the end point by rotating these tiles around. One line for the purple energy, and another for the green. I've played hacking minigames before though, so I've trained for this.

Being close up to a wall like this has reminded me of something. TimeSplitters 2 has detail textures that appear when you're near something to add roughness to the surface, and this isn't doing that. Maybe it's something that they had to sacrifice to improve performance, I dunno. All I know is that the frame rate has been great and I haven't really missed the extra detail.

Oh no, another boss fight? On the same train? C'mon!

Thankfully I just had to shoot at him for 30 seconds as he flew around on his jetpack and then it was over. The '60s are over!

1994 - MANSION OF MADNESS

Then I played the next level for a bit. It's a bit Resident Evil-themed with zombies and guess what, it's got rubbish boss fights too! Well this one's not so bad, but the next one...

Actually I need to move this along so I'll spare you from my whining.

Alright, the 'Arcade' and 'Challenge' game types have both returned and aren't actually all that different to how they were in the previous games.

Arcade is where the multiplayer battles live, but you can also play arcade matches against bots. I was flying through these in TimeSplitters 2, unlocking new characters and game modes, but I just tried the very first arcade match of the Amateur League and it humbled me. I don't know if they're harder in general, or it's just this one that's a struggle, but I couldn't even get a bronze trophy from it.

It's a cool level though. It has you fighting with rocket launchers on top of a Zeppelin. It's like a first-person Smash Bros map.

You can also set up your own custom matches and it still has all the options from the previous game. Character abilities also return (which are actually character ability scores, like in D&D), though they're a little different in this one. They've removed 'accuracy' and added fire and electricity resistance.

Anyway I'm going to set up a match I've played before in TimeSplitters 2 so I can compare the two games fairly. I appreciate how they brought some of the old levels back. And there's about 150 characters to unlock, so there are a few returning characters as well.

GameCube

First here's Mexican Mission on TimeSplitters 2. And now here's what it looks like in Future Perfect...

Actually there's no point in me showing the Future Perfect version of the map as it's just the same thing. Basically identical. In fact back in the day I didn't really bother with the game's multiplayer because I felt like I'd done it all before in TimeSplitters 2, many times over.

But I'm not considering returning levels and characters to be a bad thing, and there are improvements.

Like Future Perfect tells you on screen when you've got a kill, which actually really helps. It means you know instantly that they're done and you can safely switch your focus to the next target. No ambiguity.

Also the addition of a crosshair and the improved aiming makes a real difference.

I wish I could show this somehow, but it's hard to demonstrate 'I didn't miss as much' in a single still screenshot. Oh hang on, I have an idea...

There you go, proof that the game's got much better aiming than it's predecessor.

It's also got a much better victory screen, filled with all kinds of stats (along with the traditional ambiguous awards like 'Most Manic'). It makes it feel like what I did in the fight mattered in some way.

TimeSplitters 2

Meanwhile TimeSplitters 2's victory screen starts by saying 'GAME OVER' in bright glowing text and then gives you the options 'Rematch' or 'Main menu'. Even when you win you feel like you lost!

The 'Challenge' game type is where you have to complete tasks instead of just scoring kills against bots. This particular stage has me shooting waves of zombie monkeys and honestly I'm getting tempted to just stop here and take the bronze trophy I've earned instead of getting enough points for the better trophies. It's turning into a real endurance run.

Also this screen sort of almost shows off a problem I've had with these game types sometimes: the enemies can blend into levels. Not always, just occasionally. I miss Perfect Dark's highlighting.

Okay, I should probably say something about the MapMaker. 

You construct a level by placing pre-made blocks of level that snap together and connect up at their open sides. Corridors, rooms, rooms with stairs in them etc. This blueprint view is a little abstract but there's a helpful 3D preview feature to check if it's all connecting up right and the stairs are headed to the right floor.

Instead of having separate themed blocks, like haunted mansion room, military hallway etc. you make the level first and then apply a theme to the whole thing.

It's still basically the same as the previous game, though it has more pieces to build levels out of and they're split into groups so you don't have to scroll through them all trying to find the stairs anymore.

There are also more objects to place, like buggies and ramps and remote-controlled pets. Plus it has elaborate story logic, so you can set up enemies and player objectives.

Oh and there's a sky now! You're not trapped indoors (unless you want to be).  

Unfortunately multiple floors is pretty much all it has over Wolfenstein 3D in complexity, as these are some boxy levels. You can't create the kind of levels you see in the story with this thing, it's just not meant for that. 

You also can't make Doom's E1M1 or Duke Nukem 3D's Hollywood Holocaust, or anything really recognisable. It kind of takes the fun out of it really, for me anyway. Oh, I may be able to do GoldenEye's Facility map though, I'll have to check the toilet situation.


CONCLUSION

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Sometimes I'll return to a game I used to like years ago and discover that my memory's been lying to me. Maybe it's better than I expected, or way worse. Or maybe it's just different.

But TimeSplitters: Future Perfect is exactly how I remembered it. Cortez is a loveable goofy Riddick with boundless enthusiasm and a gift for violence, the multiplayer is a slightly better version of something that was already good, and the single-player mode has moved beyond its GoldenEye 007 roots to become a lot less stressful and dated.

The game hasn't gone full Halo, there's no weapon limits or regenerating health, but you can actually recover your health now! And aim weapons properly! Both good things. It's just a shame that it doesn't entirely get into the spirit of the time travel when it comes to the weapons you're accumulating; I wanted a period-appropriate arsenal. I also appreciated the generous checkpoints, as nothing kills my momentum more than being kicked back to the start when I fail. I'm here for a time travel adventure, not to get stuck in a time loop, so I can get behind the game being a little easier and a lot less punishing. Outside of the difficulty spikes I mean.

And this actually is a proper adventure this time, not a series of unrelated short stories. Here the cartoony comedy cutscenes link the different levels together into a ridiculous ongoing plot, with a lead character that actually talks to people! It's not like TimeSplitters 2 didn't have set-pieces and scenes playing out during the levels as the situation evolved, but this is a lot more of a focused narrative-driven experience that keeps moving forwards. There are still occasions where you have to return to somewhere you've already been, but this time it's because it's getting creative with time portals, not because you missed shooting one whisky barrel halfway through the level.

So the visuals have aged well, the music's great, the shooting's good, and it's actually doing something with the time travel... but it can't all be good. So where does it stumble?

Well, I'm the wrong person to ask about boss fights, as I don't typically like them, but I didn't like most of the boss fights. Especially the giant creature in the zombie mansion stage; I'm not even sure how you can defeat it without tanking hits. 

Plus I haven't even played that far and I've already found that not every level is a winner, with the prologue being one of the weaker stages. The game had me thinking "I'm glad I never have to do that again," more often than I'd like. 

And some people feel that the gameplay has strayed too far from the distinctive GoldenEye style, making it feel like another generic first-person shooter. Though the risqué character design and cheeky humour is 100% TimeSplitters and I can see that also being a negative for some people. It's very of its time.

I didn't absolutely love the game, there are many other shooters that I'd rather play than this, but to me this is the best of the TimeSplitters in both single-player and multiplayer. I don't play a lot of multiplayer to be honest, it's not my area of expertise, but if someone told me that this is the best multiplayer shooter on the PS2, Xbox and GameCube, I'd say "Oh, I guess that makes sense." It's the ultimate evolution of what it is... at least until someone finally gets TimeSplitters 4 made.

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Well that's it, I'm all out of TimeSplitters. I'm not telling you what the next game is going to be though, you'll have to work that out yourself.

You can also tell people what you think about TimeSplitters: Future Perfect. Is it a classic FPS or a disappointing sequel? Or is it something that you haven't gotten around to yet, but maybe want to try now?