Friday From the Archives: TimeSplitters (2000)

Every Friday (or thereabouts) we celebrate the heritage of Code Redd Net by posting a retro-review from our considerable back catalogue of embarrassingly naive, but nonetheless entertaining and heartfelt, movie and game reviews. Please pardon the prose; most of these articles were written in immediately post-pubescent years. Hopefully you find them as enjoyable as we do.

I swear, I'll get my reviews of all three 'Splitters up sometime in the next week. Suffice it to say for now, I love all three dearly. Even the original TimeSplitters, dated though it may look and play when compared with its sequels, means a lot to me. This one has by far the best (and largest) multiplayer maps in the entire series; in particular, I enjoy Planet X, Mansion, and the Bank. ChickenMan and I spent many, many hours playing this game, and you can see the love we have for it in his original review below. But myself, I want some tacos.

"I’ve been sitting here a while thinking of what to say about one of the best FPS’s I’ve played. It’s got very colorful characters, a lot of cool guns, a co-op story mode, and a great multiplayer mode with the AI bots. A few think story mode does not deserve to have a story mentioned because all they have is a few sentences explaining your levels and objectives and a background story on the back of the box. To me, that’s just enough. I didn’t ask for a five star story, I asked for some awesome shooting. You know what they say; if you want some tacos, go to taco bell. This is another version of it; if you want a five star story go play your RPG’s. It’s got some unique multiplayer modes and it’s own mapmaker. You can do your own creative stuff and have some great multiplayer action. In story mode you’ll go to different past and future years with different characters for each. This is pretty cool because you get a variety of weapons. I know some people who don’t like escort missions and you don’t have to do them if you don’t like them. If you do, then you can do them in arcade mode. And you might think you’re not doing anything but it keeps track of cool stats like rounds fired and heads punched off. I really like that. It’s got so many characters, you’ll be sure to find at least one that you like. It’s very customizable and you can play a match to 11,000 kills or more if that’s what you’re into. This game is purely fried chicken. Go check it out."