April 8, 2005 - There are very few titles fondly remembered in the history of gaming. True, there are classics and even revolutionary titles that reviewers benchmark against continuously to lay credence to the new breed of games. But as time marches on, these titles pale in our subconscious. Soon, a game compared to Quake will yield very little meaning. The point-and-click adventure games are all but gone from our shelves. Seldom is it then that a title attaches itself so deeply within the gamers’ collective consciousness to elicit an almost ravage-like devotion towards it. Yes, I am speaking of 1997’s Goldeneye 007 released by Rare Ltd. on Nintendo’s then-flagship console, the Nintendo 64. Even today, it is impossible to release a first person shooter without the masses comparing it to Goldeneye. Halo may have been a revolutionary console title, but many played it and simply turned up their noses. Do so many people still play their N64s?

The beauty of Goldeneye is that anyone who’s played it seems to have a connection to the game. I can draw out the map of every level from memory and indicate every enemy position on it, every health pickup, armor vest locations and the places to pick up the best weapons too. In 20 years from now, I will remember Goldeneye as a wonderfully vivid dream. The reality of it though is that as wonderful as our collective recollection for that game is, by today’s standards, it is a dated, unplayable mess. Going back to it from time to time, I am confronted with 64-bit graphics with bland textures, predictable enemy A.I., and most maddening of all, an archaic control scheme that I shudder to think of. I wonder how I ever beat all those time-challenges with those controls.

And now, almost 8 years later, Free Radical Design (which contains many of the original Rare Goldeneye 007 members) gives us Timesplitters 3 Future Perfect the true modern heir to the 007 game of yore. Will the nay-sayers tell us that it pales in comparison to Goldeneye? That it can’t stand up against the king of console FPS, Halo 2? Or will they look back in 20 years from now and remember with great longing how wonderful a title TSFP really was?

Timesplitters Future Perfect contains a true bevy of modes to experience. There is the single player campaign (which can be played solo or in coop mode on a split-screen TV), an arcade mode where the game pits you against bots in various situations, a challenge mode where you can race a cat around a track, shoot zombie monkeys and break glass and dishes to your heart’s content. A solid mapmaker function, a split-screen multiplayer mode, a system-link option, 150 characters to unlock (as well as cheats and other goodies) and then there’s also Xbox Live, where you can play a plethora of different modes, do/view challenges, share maps for single and multi-player mayhem, beat best times for every story level, and even play a deathmatch as the Gingerbread Man if that tickles your fancy. Did I mention the monkeys? The Zombie Monkeys? How about the ones carrying shotguns? Oh, there truly is a wondrous amount of things to do.

The single player story mode focuses on a Vin Diesel-like character named Cortez who must travel through time in the hopes of saving the “future humanity” of 2401 from extinction at the hands of the TimeSplitters. The story is actually quite forgettable and simply an excuse to get our hero from one time period to the next. What isn’t forgettable, however, is the wonderful sense of humor present throughout the story (as well as in all other modes). There are some truly laugh-out-loud moments and I am quite thankful that the developers have given us the option to replay all unlocked movies in the extras menu. These scenes are so well conceived and so incredibly funny that you could show them to a complete stranger who knows nothing about the game’s story and still get a laugh out of them.