TimeSplitters 2 is over ten years old. While that may be a crazy thought in a "gee, time flies" kind of way, the amazing thing about it is that I still play it, and not just when I'm on a nostalgia trip. Its an ongoing fascination, and despite its age, TS2 is still the best FPS around, complete, challenging, and enduring.
TS1 was all heart, and it unquestionably had lots of it, but it lacked a fully-functional story mode. What story mode it had simply functioned as a single-player excuse to go through the multiplayer maps and unlock things for multiplayer. The paucity of the single-player campaign was offset by the highly customizable multiplayer matches, which could be populated with AI bots if you needed stand-ins for your buddies, or if you wanted to spice up your matches with more combatants. TS2 is the right kind of sequel: it made its weaknesses into its strengths, and its strengths even stronger. Gone is the pause screen plot of the original, and in its place is an integrated story that, even though it's pretty facile, provides just enough narrative sanction to justify all the timesplitting therein. In fact, it's basically the same thing: an evil race of aliens uses time travel in their ongoing war with humans, and the humans dispatch two soldiers to leap through the ages, stopping these evil-doers from messing around with our past. Future Perfect would essentially repeat this story yet again, albeit in a much more refined manner, but TS2's story mode is still satisfying. To begin with, the concept itself is a smart one: the time traveling plot device keeps the missions varied and interesting. It also helps that instead of the mono-objective nature of TS1's quasi-missions, TS2's are episodic, comprised of multiple objectives that develop during the course of the mission and change depending on your choice of difficulty. Speaking of difficulty, TS2 has one of the hardest story modes I have ever played. Things get hairy even on Medium difficulty, and getting through the story on Hard requires the dedication and discipline of an Olympian (call me when you get by Robot Factory on Hard and I'll take you out for a beer). You can bring a pal along for some co-op action, which is great, though I'm not sure if doing so makes the game noticeably easier or harder. Regardless, the option to tackle the story with someone else was a fairly novel idea in 2002, and it just adds another layer to TS2's complete multiplayer package.
Speaking of multiplayer, TS2 has to be the best of the FPS bunch. Remember that this was an era in which online console gaming was in its very infancy, so this one was made to be played offline, even though you can still get it online through some crazy complicated setup. Point being, TS2's multiplayer Arcade has aged quite well, as opposed to others games in the genre whose multiplayer features require both a server (most of which are not supported anymore) as well as an active online community. Provided you keep the disc and your PS2 in working condition, you can theoretically enjoy TS2 indefinitely. Customization is the key here: there's 16 maps of varying sizes and styles, almost as many modes (from standards such as Deathmatch/Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag to Flame Tag and Thief), over 100 characters from a wide selection of milieus, an arsenal culled from just as many settings, and point/time limits you can impose on these matches, as well as adjusting the soundtrack to your liking and populating the field with up to 10 computer-controlled opponents or allies. You can go on forever mixing and matching these options as you like, and AI bots are instrumental in giving the game its replay value, and of course you know how we feel about AI bots.
If sandboxes aren't your thing, or if they are and you just want more reason to keep playing, there's also a wide selection of Arcade Leagues in which you attempt to medal under certain circumstances (for example, a deathmatch in which a victory plus 40 kills gets you gold, 30 kills gets you silver, 20 kills gets you bronze). These leagues can be quite challenging and getting the gold (or the elusive platinum) can occasionally be more a matter of luck than skill. Still, though, getting through them unlocks characters, cheats, maps, and more, and unlocking everything takes a considerable amount of time. Arcade League is similar in nature to the Challenge mode, in that the medaling system is the same and the process of unlocking extra features is the same, this mode is far more eclectic: shoot x number of watermelons of the heads of parading monkeys, for instance, or shatter x number of window panes as quickly as possible. Challenge gives TS2 not only that much more replay value, but it also gives TS2 some variety: absurd tasks such as these are a welcome relief from all the intense firefighting elsewhere.
It also doesn't hurt that the game is tight as a drum in terms of speed and control. There's absolutely no sight of slowdown, even when the screen is loaded up with all kinds of bullets, lasers, and characters. Really, though, look at all the features mentioned above: a fully-formed Story mode that is both single- and multi-player, a deep and dedicated Arcade mode, the Arcade Leagues, all those challenges, not to mention the MapMaker that can generate single and multi-player maps, as well as the unnecessarily comprehensive stat tracking. We maintain that TS2 is the best PS2 game around primarily for two reasons: not only is it an absolute blast to play, but it still has replay value 10+ years after it was released. We're still addicted to TS2 and nothing else out there comes close.
