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"Free Radical Design"

I Like Goldeneye, probably the most stupid pointless thing I’ve said in a long time WHO DOESN’T LIKE GOLDENEYE? Now I believe that Perfect Dark has surpassed Goldeneye ten fold but there is something special about Goldeneye that is so lacking in its sequel. Now I can put this down to the absence of a few (well loads) of the original Goldeneye team and by heck I will. When the Playstation 2 have something good I never say it, I never claim a good game is rubbish unless I really think so but if there is a good PS2 title then I keep quite (except for GTA3 that is outstanding). Now early in the Playstation 2’s life there was a game I liked A LOT! Now I didn’t like Tekken very much at all but there was a certain game by Free Radical Design that I did I am of course referring to Timesplitters. Now Free Radical Design are those people who left RARE, although I hated them for doing such I thing I am also incredibly thankful as a game such as Timesplitters would never have been made if they stuck with RARE. Now I don’t know why they left RARE but I presumed they didn’t want to stick with Nintendo, this worried me as the chances of Timesplitters getting a Gamecube release had just go lower and to lower it even still their publisher was Eidos, a company that has never really made a Nintendo home console game, the fact is the N64 and Gamecube are the only systems not to have a Tomb Raider game (I don’t know about the X-box) and so I presumed I wouldn’t be getting Timesplitters.

And so I didn’t like the game anymore, instead of pointing out what was right about it I commented on its flaws. This game is graphically poor (It had its own style to be honest), it takes AGES to load (but it was worth it), you die too quickly in multiplayer (your supposed too), it is just a matter of getting from A-B (true but dispatching your enemies is different all the time e.g. for skeletons you must remove the head) and there is no story in story mode (doesn’t stop it being fun). Free Radical Design is the name of the company and Free Radical Design are exactly that, this is a company filled with people who have changed the face of First Person shooters with Goldeneye by completely revolutionizing the genre and guess what? Timesplitters does it again. Yes Red Faction lets you blow up walls, yes Turok has dinosaurs in it, yes Halo lets you drive a tank, yes Metroid lets you roll into a ball but does any of them let you run around an arena with a gun killing humans with duck heads in a mode called Duck Hunt? Thought not. Free Radical Design have no holds barred on the Timesplitters games, this is no simple First Person Shooter, as it is as they say radical! Also one feature I was very impressed with is that it allows you to build your own deathmatch area, what a great idea, David Doak you have done yourself proud once again.

So when it is announced that Timesplitters 2, the much-anticipated sequel is heading to Gamecube my jaw drops open, Final Fantasy, oh please this is much much bigger. Although the significance in the announcement comes in the form of an Eidos game on the Gamecube this doesn’t matter to me, it is Timesplitters 2 on the Gamecube. Made by the most insane but brilliant company of them all! I really cannot wait for this title as it is made by the kings of FPS. Metroid does look like a nice game, nice new fresh ideas that is set to be a new great game, Turok Evolution may finally be a Turok game that is hard to fault, Perfect Dark 0 well to be honest I haven’t the foggiest what this will be like, Die Hard looks nice but nothing too special, Agent Under Fire and Phoenix Rising again good but these Bond titles don’t offer more than an enjoyable title for a month or two. These are all major Gamecube First Person Shooters but none of them in my mind will be quite like Timesplitters. The list I just gave you will borrow ideas heavily from each other but Timesplitters is in a league of its own, you’ll never play a game quite like Timesplitters! The ideas injected into this game are quite frankly weird, and they work so well, the idea of facing an army of undead robot things that only die if you shoot them directly in the head is highly original and challenging, something first person shooters never really required to such a degree, accuracy.

Personally I believe Free Radical Design are the 3rd party Nintendo just much more obvious. Nintendo have a fat Italian plumber saves a princess, trapped in her own castle by a giant scaly green dinosaur that talks, a castle that floats on a cloud, that has doors locked by stars, and stars are found in paintings that open up into another world, you can also find talking mushrooms and caps that turn you metal. Right now seeing it like that you can begin to realize that Nintendo aren’t quite right in the head, a speeding Hedgehog makes sense as they are opposites but a fat Italian plumber doesn’t. Now somehow Nintendo make you feel at home with this crazy psycho mushroom filled orgy. Now Timesplitters is the same, equally as insane and pointless but incredibly enjoyable as well. But on to Eidos, why all of a sudden the change of heart? Do they see the Gamecube as a prime place to have First Person Shooters; of course the Cube wasn’t around when the first one was released. Could it be partly to do with the new developers initiative to stop Sony charging too much? Or maybe it has more to do with Free Radical Design themselves, a company that has worked along side Nintendo before and with rumors suggesting they want to include Perfect Dark’s face mapping idea into the game maybe it is because they intend to use the future Gameboy Advance Camera, just a thought.

I’m putting my money on Timesplitters 2 beating the competition on the Gamecube, whilst Turok is looking good, Metroid is looking better than good, Perfect Dark preparing to set new standards and Die Hard trying to match Goldeneye along with the other Bond licenses I feel that I will find the greater satisfaction with Timesplitters 2 as it is the most different and enjoyable First Person Shooter of them all.

Here’s to the Future

Dringo.

Dringo wrote:
> They need to use optical discs for low loading :D#

no just attach a 32x USB external DVD drive (8 times faster) to your PS2 along with the HDD making it load faster than the eye can see ;-)

or better yet stream the game complety from disc not loading whatsoever, something I've yet to see the Xbox or Gamecube pull off or even a PC :-D

Or†ega wrote:
> There are still DVD based games which take ages to load...Eg Red
> Faction...

The team behind Red Faction obviously took little care towards the loading times, Every game has select points, fade outs or stops where the game can load but with Red Faction it just loaded each part during gameplay "parker I'm going to LOADING................. kill you now" and it spoiled or rather RUINED the game, Even saving took forever and interupted the game, pants!

Loading isn't such a big hurdle to overcome, many games nowadays blend loading into the game, SSX shows the controls, stats for a few seconds then it's pure gameplay, Tomb Raider doesn't load whatsoever during levels, some games stream directly off disc and the use of the PS2 HDD will cut it down to a minimum. Ok I'm babaling a bit now but it's mainly Ninty's who complain about loading when many N64 games such as Zelda, perfect dark etc have more fade-outs and loading opertunitys than disc based games so performance wise there's little difference, anyway back to the point Red Faction sux big time on loading but my point was Timesplitters 2 will be DVD based therefore won't load anywhere near as much as Timesplitters 1 which was CD based and yes, Red Faction although on DVD sucked big time on loading times but if it was CD based it would be worse ;-)

They need to use optical discs for low loading :D

There are still DVD based games which take ages to load...Eg Red Faction...

Res€vilfan wrote:
> Dringo wrote:
> >This game is graphically poor (It had its own style to be
> honest)
>
> 90% of early PS2 titles were and if you look at Timesplitters 2 it's
> one of the most impressive PS2 titles to date.
>
> >It takes AGES to load (but it was worth it)
> Timesplitters is CD based, DVDs load much quicker.


So what your trying to say is that yes the graphics were poor and yes the loading took ages...

Dringo wrote:
>This game is graphically poor (It had its own style to be honest)

90% of early PS2 titles were and if you look at Timesplitters 2 it's one of the most impressive PS2 titles to date.

>It takes AGES to load (but it was worth it)
Timesplitters is CD based, DVDs load much quicker.

ok I read on and you actually liked Timesplitters so the defence rests :-)

I'm sure TimeSplitters 2 won't do what Goldeneye did for the N64 for the GameCube, because it's not an exclusive title, is it? The GameCube will have to get other titles to make it 'the console to own'.

They make two games and you call them the kings of FPS....

I have to admit I've only played the original Time Splitters on the multiplayer mode and I wasn't too impressed. But I haven't had the chance to get into the game, to get used to the controls, and that's what's caused me to feel like this.

However, my brother has played the game loads, probably completed it for all I know and he loves the game.

I reckon it will be a hit on the GameCube. I've only seen the screenshots in the latest NGC magazine and it claims no release date has been announced, but I reckon Time Splitters 2 has the potential to do what Goldeneye did for the N64.

Dringo wrote:
> Do you think they got that message?

I hope so, its still got me reeling :0)