If you want to know if you'd be interested in TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, just ask yourself this series of simple questions. Do you enjoy firing high-caliber weaponry at eclectic targets including, but not limited to circus midgets, dinosaurs, giant sock men, gangsters, robots, Aztec warriors, and zombies? Does the prospect of battling on a train packing a nuclear warhead alongside an oversexed, mustachioed super-spy in 1969, followed by creeping through a haunted mansion in Connecticut in 1994 with the aid of a Catholic school girl intrigue you? Do you like it better when the hero only thinks he's a badass? If you answered yes to any or all of these questions then read on, my good friend, read on. If not, well, then go back to reading the dictionary or sorting stamps or whatever other boring hobbies you amuse yourself with, you nerd!

   Yes, the name of the game with the TimeSplitters series has always been random, chaotic, hilarious, fast-paced first-person shooting, and Future Perfect is the finest offering yet. The Story campaign begins right where TimeSplitters 2 left off, with Cortez racing back to Earth, eight precious time crystals (secured in the previous game) in tow. After being shot down by splitters upon reentry, Cortez must blast his way back to the base in a short level that helps the player gain a feel for the game without exposing him to too much danger. Upon returning to the base the story kicks into full swing. The time crystals are used to send Cortez back into the past, this time with the intent of discovering the cause of the war between human and splitter in the hopes of putting a stop to it before it can even begin. What follows is a madcap romp through history in search of a mysterious time traveler who may hold the key to everything, while simultaneously trying to keep Cortez's bumbling idiocy from creating too many time paradoxes (by far the more difficult of the two tasks). Along the way plenty of faces familiar to TimeSplitters veterans will return, including the half-mad British adventurer, Captain Ashe, the bell-bottom-wearing super-spy, Harry Tipper, and the latest in the R-100 series of combat robots. Yes, folks, the story this time around is top-notch, with plenty of hilarious in-level and between level cut scenes keeping things moving at a hearty clip. Plus, almost every level will have you paired with some other trigger-happy nutcase who enjoys shooting off his or her mouth as much as his firearm. The beauty of the game is that it never, ever takes itself seriously, thus turning what would be classic first-person-shooter cliches into wonderful parodies of action movies and games. For instance, in one of the haunted mansion levels you are required to check some computer records. One of the items that you'll likely stumble upon is a Doom 3-style audio log in a which a technician attempts to confide the combination to a weapons locker he's apparently forgotten, but instead simply rambles on about nothing and is eventually cut off by the computer the second he seems to remember the code. Or when Harry Tipper hurls an enemy from a speeding train in one of the 1969 levels, he simply turns to Cortez, shrugs, and states, "No ticket." It's pure genius.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

   Technically speaking, TimeSplitters looks like it's finally taken a page from Halo's book. At long last you are given a crosshair so you can actually tell exactly where you are going to shoot rather than in previous entries of the series where you were forced to point in the general vicinity of the enemy and hope for the best. Heck, this time the crosshair even turns red when over an enemy. Astounding! The button configuration screams Halo as well. Pull the right trigger and you give your foes a burst of lead justice. Pull the left and you toss a grenade. Attacked while reloading? Push B to execute a melee attack with your gun. Want to switch modes on your weapon? A quick press of up on the directional pad does the trick. When switching weapons a transparent inventory appears at the top of the screen to show you what you have and what order they are in. The only feature still noticeably lacking is the ability to jump. While not a serious problem, it is a little frustrating to be able to destroy towering robot death-fortresses with ease but find a low wall an impassable barricade.

   Graphically the game is a solid improvement over its predecessors. The cartoony look of TimeSplitters 2 has been knocked up a notch, and during cut-scenes the characters' faces are capable of an impressive degree of expressiveness. Environments look good too, both from a distance and up close, and are definitely on par with anything else on the current gaming platforms. During gameplay bullets fly, things blow up, and people jump and run about all without a hint of slowdown. Plus, when a guy takes a round right in the testicles, he doubles over clutching himself, clearly in agony. Now that's cutting-edge realism. Speaking of which, I should add that there is a substantial amount of blood and gore in this game. While previous TimeSplitters games opted for a sort of all-purpose impact effect when someone got shot, this time they went for gouts of blood and, depending on what kind of enemy it was, perhaps a shower of meaty chunklets.

   Sound wise the game is as good as its predecessors. All its tunes are catchy and appropriate for whatever setting you happen to be running through and each weapon has a satisfying report effect. I'd like to call special attention to the voice acting, though, as I feel it really helps to bring the game's zany cast to life. The actor who voices Cortez turns in a particularly brilliant performance, giving him just the right self-confidence-to-idiocy ratio. Well done, sir. Also, a note to whoever did the screams for when characters get set on fire; you have created some moments I will treasure forever. Thank you.

You've got a friend in yourself

   A clever concept the game utilizes this time around in Story mode is periodically calling upon you to assist yourself in firefights. Due to the amount of time travel in the various locations you'll traverse, the time stream has been destabilized creating wormholes. By jumping through these wormholes Cortez is capable of teaming up with himself in certain areas where more than one pair of gun-packing hands are needed. For example, in one level you are required to hack a computer while tons of little spider robots attack you. Clearly you can't accomplish your task while insectoid automatons turn your ass into a laser pincushion. But just when things look hopeless - voila! Another Cortez appears and does the shooting while you do the hacking. Of course, this means shortly down the road you'll need to locate a wormhole and jump through it so you can do the shooting for another hacking Cortez. At first this might seem like an excuse by the developers to recycle areas, but in practice it comes across as fresh and fun as those feminine hygiene commercials appear to be. Each time you repeat one of these areas you're usually doing something drastically different from the last time you traversed it. Also, whatever Cortez you are not controlling normally does a pretty good job of handling his side of things, so you don't need to worry too much about getting killed because of stupid A.I. Plus, some of the dialogue between Cortez and himself is pretty hilarious.

   If you get lonely playing the story mode without real companionship, however, you can always find a friend, an acquaintance, or an arch-nemesis, really anyone who'll sit down with you for a while, and play Story mode co-op. You'll miss out on some of the in-level dialogue, as the second player will be controlling whatever partner is with you in that level. Of course, I look upon this as an incentive to make up my own dialogue such as, "We are off to the festivities of the armadillos!" or, "Behold the grandeur of my tentative nuclei!" and shout it as loud as I can during play. You, of course, can say whatever strikes your fancy. Those were just my personal favorites. There are also a handful of spots that will play out slightly differently, since they just wouldn't make sense with two player-controlled characters.

   All in all, the story mode will likely set you back a little over ten hours, but unless you're going to be repeatedly nailing supermodels or winning the lottery, you're not going to be spending those ten hours in a more enjoyable manner. The only complaint I would have with it is that the time periods are not quite as varied as they were in TimeSplitters 2, with a large number of the levels taking place in what would be considered "futuristic" settings. It would have been nice to have had a little more diversity in the levels (and thus in the weaponry), but seeing how good all the levels were, I suppose I can't whine too much. And once you've finished the story mode, the real fun starts...

I'm gonna be a monkey! A monkey, monkey, monkey!!!

   So you've finished story mode. Good. Your next task is to discover the wonder of the Arcade League and the Challenges.

   Arcade League is made up of a series of tasks each of which takes place in one of the games many, many multiplayer modes (the other players will all be bots, though). These tasks are incredibly varied, too, so be prepared for some real insanity. For example, one match involves sniping zombie deer as fast as you can out on the Siberian tundra while another requires you to lead a squad of robots into the secret base of a team of cybernetic chimps and destroy it (did I mention this game is pretty heavy-handed with the monkeys?). The more successful you are at these tasks the better the trophy you'll receive, and the more high-ranking trophies you get the more stuff you unlock to use in custom league matches. While the early matches are pretty simple, as you move up in the league they get increasingly difficult, and let me tell you, some of the final ones are pretty pants-crappingly hard.

   The Challenges are similar, but also, if I may be so bold, somewhat different... Each of the Challenges will, like the Arcade League, give you a task to accomplish and will rank you depending on how successful you are, but these aren't the types of things you could set up in a custom Arcade match. One challenge requires you to take part in a game of curling, but instead of those funny little iron-type things you use curled up monkeys. Another requires you to shoot the heads off increasingly larger swarms of zombies. A third gives you two mounted guns to operate simultaneously and you are ranked by how long you can hold out against legions of timesplitters. Overall the Challenges are a bit harder then the Arcade League and recommended for those who have already bent the League over a barrel and had their sordid way with it.

   Both of these modes will easily eat up as much time as Story mode but, again, it will be time well spent. Once you've had your fill with these then it's time to turn your attention to playing amazing custom Arcade games. With over a dozen different modes, a variety of maps, and 150 playable characters, you've got a practical guarantee that no match will ever be exactly the same. The matches themselves are fast-paced with death coming quickly to the unaware, the inexperienced, and the unlucky. There's not much more to them than running and shooting, but learning the best way to utilize the game's myriad of weapons as well as figuring out which of the characters suits you best takes some practice. If you've got TimeSplitters-loving friends in your neck of the woods you can play Arcade matches splitscreen or over a system link with up to sixteen players. If you're a lonely man but you've got a subscription to Xbox Live, you can play over the internet and discover the joy of slaughtering people you've never even met.

Map me out, Scottie!

   Finally comes one of my favorite features of this game; the Mapmaker. Incredibly accessible, the Mapmaker allows you to construct fairly complex maps both for Arcade or Story modes. Understandably, you can't make levels as complicated as those in the game's own Story and Arcade modes, but you can certainly make things that are quirky and fun using any of the characters you've unlocked. Several demo maps are included so you can use them as guides for making your own. Once you're done, you can even log into Xbox Live and swap some of your favorite maps with others. My lone complaint with this feature is the rather odd limit on how much memory your map can take up. Since I conceivably had access to an entire hard drive of free space, the limit on how large my map could be seemed unnecessary.

   In summary, if you enjoy the finer things in life such as setting people on fire with flares or putting a nice, sturdy harpoon right through a zombie's rotting noggin, if you prefer your shooters with a dollop of the absurd, and if you get all tingly in embarrasing places over ludicrous amounts of unlockables, you'll definitely dig TimeSplitters: Future Perfect.

       ... Mike Zeller

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