TimeSplitters 1 (2000) feels like a tech demo compared to 2
My memories of TimeSplitters go back to Gamecube, on which I played the second game first. I was a big Goldeneye fan, and I knew it was developed by the same developers, so I erroneously assumed it was a Rare game. It’s kind of a shooter that isn’t made anymore. A thinking man’s FPS where you are supposed to think about actual objectives than watching some minicutscenes and blasting the enemies. That game got too tough that I never beat it, so I’m thinking about replaying it for the later. I did wonder what the first game was like, and for a while, I assumed it was more or less the same as 2.
I played TimeSplitters 1 recently with the mouse and keyboard set-up, and I have complex feelings about it. The game that reminded me most of was Monolith’s Contract Jack. Perfect Dark has been frequently compared to No One Lives Forever in the same year for being a female superspy FPS and having very similar mission design. Contract Jack was a spin-off of No One Lives Forever 2. That game was essentially a glorified expansion that strips down the narrative, complex mission design, level design, atmosphere, but only featured “shooting”. It’s an amateurish-level production that it almost feels like a mod at times. Time Splitters 1 feels like that to TimeSplitters 2.
The core Goldeneye developers left Rare during the production of Perfect Dark and created their own studio, Free Radical Design (which became part of Crytek later). This resulted in Perfect Dark turning into a development hell, where the project was generally helmed by the newbies. Free Radical Design was in the midst of a development hell as they tried to make Second Sight, but got rejected, and the team had to scramble together a Goldeneye successor within the small budget and little time, resulting in TimeSplitters. And it shows. There is no narrative, no objective but “take this thing and go to this circle”, no cohesive vision. It appears they just inserted “Time” into the title because they created a bunch of different themed maps, but had to make a connection by slapping a time travel concept. It feels like a TimeSplitters 2 user map.
At the same time, I appreciate the arcade purity of the game, which no longer exists in the industry but the indie scene. It’s a game you can beat in an hour. It’s simple, but you are supposed to replay the missions on the varying difficulties for the multiplayer unlocks. It’s hard to think a game like this even being published on the AAA scene anymore, good or bad.
For a while, I didn’t mind it because the core gameplay was fun. I don’t know exactly what ticks, but the gunplay in Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, and TimeSplitters just feels great. It’s hard to describe. It’s smooth and addicting. Just shooting a machinegun feels good. It’s something that the other console FPS in the era couldn’t capture. Just compare it to the Bond games like Agent Under Fire and Medal of Honor, and although those games had more advanced elements, the raw blasting sensation of TimeSplitters is unmatched. The presentation, despite being clearly low-budget, is great. It’s nothing comparable to the sequel or even Goldeneye, but the stylized aesthetics still hold up, creating that the PS2 vibe that no longer exists. It goes a long way to have a great soundtrack complementing the different themed levels.
So, whatever. It’s a good shooter. Goldeneye without the mission design, and if the gunplay is good, it should be good. Right? I thought that way for the first two levels… then the cracks begin to show fast. This game is insanely difficult. I played it on Normal, and even with the mouse, I eventually had to crank it down to Easy because this game just straight-up bullshits the player. The more I play, the more I realize how much the core combat system is flawed.
In Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, the enemy reaction time is quite generous. If they find the player, they shout something like “I found her!”, alerting their presence to the player, and position to fire for a second, giving the player a choice of whether to be offensive (shoot first) or defensive (take cover). They are also stationary when they attack, sort of like a tank. When you shoot them, they get stunned for a few seconds, unable to fire. Their attack is clearly telegraphed and easily avoidable if the player is mobile enough. It’s supposed to encourage the player to build a constant momentum and move around.
TimeSplitters 1 doesn’t do this. The enemies 1) instantly fire with a few frames of “raising weapons”, 2) move while firing, 3) stay silent when detecting the player, 4) sometimes get stunned when hit, or sometimes just ignore the hit and fire at the player, 5) are long-ranged with high accuracy, so they do not charge at the player, 6) ambush the player, whether they suddenly come out of cover or pop out in thin air through teleportation.
In addition, the player has no invincibility frames. What happens is that I cleared the room incredibly carefully, then some guy suddenly spawns and jumps off from the high floor and blasts me with a machinegun, cutting down my entire bar of health in one second. It’s absurdly cheap, and the only way you can even some encounters is for the player to memorize the levels through trial and error, rather than testing the player’s skills.
Combine that with the limited health pick-ups, the game often becomes a frustrating mess. The combat isn’t fundamentally balanced enough. It results in the player doing pattern memorization and knowing which enemey is in what position. Like, I don’t see how anyone can even beat this game on Hard with the controller unless they memorize literal frame-by-frame patterns. Goldeneye already solved this issue on N64, only for TimeSplitters to backroll all that elegant game design to make the combat a mess. My guess for why they designed the combat like this is because either they didn’t have enough time to test it, or they intentionally made it punishing to compenstate the short playtime. At least, I don’t remember TimeSplitters 2 being this bad, so they surely fixed it.
The animations also feature the similar problem as Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, but worse, where the enemy death animations are too muted. The deaths are not exaggerated enough. They touch their arms, then three seconds later, collapse. It results in the player wasting their ammo on the already dead enemies because their deaths are unclear. Sometimes, the stun and death animations are so indistinguishable that oftentimes I was killed by enemies that I thought I had already killed.
Despite the diverse themes, the actual enemy designs are exclusively two humanoid types: shooters or melee chargers. That’s it. No matter where it takes place, it’s the same. Even the weapon design is disappointing, with the weapon roles overlapping and repetitive. For example, there is a space level where you fire laser guns at the aliens. You then actually play it, you realize all the alien enemies are identical to the human enemies, and all the laser guns are identical to the normal guns. Compare it to Perfect Dark, where despite having dozens of weapons, each weapon serves a unique purpose with the weapon role and the secondary firing.
If you play it on Easy, it is at least tolerable, so all those design flaws aren’t as bothersome. It’s a unpolished shooter that’s fun on the primitive level, but not something the speedrunners would replay it over and over because it fundamentally lacks depth compared to Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. I enjoyed it enough, but I recommend just skipping it to the second game.