Timesplitters 2 impressions from IGN w/ movies.

http://ps2.ign.com/news/40935.html

Yesterday, we handed IGNinsiders 11 movies of TimeSplitters 2, fresh from a newly playable demo disc. Today, we give you our impressions of the demo. While Eidos just sent the disc in the mail, it\'s available as part of the February edition of the Official PlayStation Magazine (with Final Fantasy X on the cover), which is now on retail stands across the nation.
While I actually played this very level about three months ago, the game wasn\'t this finished, polished, or well, fun. TimeSplitters 2, which is made by a very large portion of the former Goldeneye 007 team (now called Free Radical Design) that worked on Nintendo\'s fantastic N64 game from 1997. The demo is quite a simple little thing, but it gives players a great chance to get a feel and look at what will be the closest console game to Goldeneye that\'s ever been.

As far as having tamed the unruly PlayStation 2 beast goes, it looks as if Free Radical has once again done a stellar job. In this little demo, gamers can see a litany of special effects happening all at once, from the great particle effects of bullets ricocheting off walls, to flaming objects (players get to use a rather worthy flame-thrower), to blasting apart obviously placed watermelons, crates, and barrels. Outside in the frosty cold weather, the shining sun creates a wonderful sense of blaring light, with snow glare from off the snowy banks, and light gleaming off the shining, frozen, crystalline river below the dam.

Besides the better than competent special effects, which come into heavier play in later levels (where players use laser rifles to blast each other), players get to experience the same awesome glass breaking effects as seen in the first game. Glass breaks in the exact location in which it\'s shot, and the shards break and fall in a pattern natural to that location.

The opening of the mission is impressive on its own. It begins with a view of a surprisingly large vista, a giant dam on the right, with guard towers on the left and right up top, and gigantic rocky walls surrounding the entire valley. The rock textures show off a nice organic flow, including an eye-catching non-repetitive design, and a sense of size that\'s become rather standard for next-gen games. It\'s no less nice, but everything in games these days is big, with large, long, draw distances, and no fogging.

Players start off at the Siberian Dam level, which contains three parts: Part 1 is snowy outpost with a few buildings in it, one with a suspicious satellite dish area, and a few soldiers; Part 2 is a series of corridors that lead underneath the dam and up to the other side of the river; and Part 3 finds the player infiltrating the control center deep inside the dam.

While the game demo shows three objectives to complete, including a secondary set, not all of them can be achieved in this demo. After playing through the demo three or four times, I learned it was just not possible to achieve anything but knock out the Satellite and blast several of the files. The second two primary objectives, discovering the digging site, and powering up the elevators, cannot be done.

In the very beginning, you\'re given a silence pistol and a few shots as well, along with a Sniper Rifle. Later on, players find an assault weapon, mines, a dual grenade launcher/auto rifle, a shotgun, a flamethrower, and a fire extinguisher. The dual grenade launcher/auto rifle and the Sniper Rifle are by the far the most effective, and most fun, weapons to use, with the mines coming for a close second. And for those who remember the weapon sounds from Goldeneye, this game sounds incredibly familiar. In fact, the music is far to familiar for me to neglect mentioning, too. Perhaps it\'s all done consciously, because the dam is a conscious ode to the first level in Goldeneye, anyway.

In any case, players are given a set of objectives to meet (by pressing Select) and they can switch their control setups quite easily by pressing Start. Free Radical has enabled players to choose up to seven settings, including a Custom setting. The default selection and the secondary default selection are simple, and enable players to play TimeSplitters 2 just like the first one, Red Faction or Half-Life. The four Turok fans (like Craig) can also be made quite happy, too, with similar controls.

The level itself is plain enough, with just the two outdoor areas, and lots of corridors and large combat rooms. The inside rooms were decent looking, with plain-ish textures, but the textures were there when it matters. Adding to this is the frickin\' blistering framerate, which seems as if it\'s blazing away at about 120 frames per second. Sure, that\'s a silly number to pull out of my arse, but the game is fast, and the controls are unreasonably quick, too.

And what\'s sooooo nice about this game is that the demo level is a single-player mission. Yes, lovely single-player missions are back, and for those Goldeneye fans and for those who were disappointed with TimeSplitters 1, well, you\'re in for a treat. If this level shows off just a smidgeon of what\'s in store, then players are sure to run into dozens upon dozens of stealth levels, loads of sneaky auto-cameras giving away your position, and tons of sniping.

All in all, this demo disc is just enough to whet our appetite for the real thing, due sometime this early spring (Q1 2002). It\'s got that wacky sense of humor, provided by the first, early cut-scene (two weasely guards are maimed by a freaky-tall zombie thing), and it\'s filled with great animations, and smart, fun sections. TimeSplitters 2 is making us quite wet, in fact. We\'ll be sure to bring you more on TimeSplitters 2 in the near future, so stick around.

-- Douglass C. Perry

And here are a few movies:

Gamespot--
http://ftp://ftp.zdnet.com/gs/ps2/shoot/timesplitters2/ts2_0115-intro_wm.zip (9 mb -- the intro to timesplitters using in-game models.  The characters still have that goofy "Timesplitters" look to them (which I have grown to love) and the facial animation is great.)
http://ftp://ftp.zdnet.com/gs/ps2/shoot/timesplitters2/ts2_0115-4_wm.zip (11 mb)
http://ftp://ftp.zdnet.com/gs/ps2/shoot/timesplitters2/ts2_0115-3_wm.zip (6 mb)
http://ftp://ftp.zdnet.com/gs/ps2/shoot/timesplitters2/ts2_0115-1_wm.zip (7 mb)
http://ftp://ftp.zdnet.com/gs/ps2/shoot/timesplitters2/ts2_0115-2_wm.zip (5 mb)


IGN --
http://ps2movies.ign.com/media/previews/video/timesplitters2/timesplitters_20.mov (5 mb)
http://ps2movies.ign.com/media/previews/video/timesplitters2/timesplitters_19.mov (4 mb)

This game is probably my most anticipated game of next year.  I hope it turns out to be great.

who needs IGN impressions

Alot of us have played the demo

its a definite improvement over the 1st one but there was little in the demo that gave the impression of inovative gameplay twists

but its only a demo that was made in Sept 2001

My real hope is for some online fun cause the game will be 5x\'s more fun

Ilink is waste for many of us,

Originally posted by ddaryl
who needs IGN impressions

Alot of us have played the demo

And a lot of us haven\'t who are eagerly awaiting the release of this game.  I don\'t know if anyone "needs" the impressions, but it\'s always nice to have something new to read about a game you are anticipating.

its a definite improvement over the 1st one but there was little in the demo that gave the impression of inovative gameplay twists

I wouldn\'t care if this game used the exact same engine as the first and only had new multiplayer levels.  I loved the first, and because I\'ve been playing Timesplitters multiplayer for more than a year, I would be crazy not to buy the second.  The better graphics and an actual single player game are just little extras that come with the great multiplayer game.

And I wish they implimented online in this game too, but I don\'t think they did.  I agree 100% -- it would make the game 5x as fun.

strange who come people in america get the demo first ?#

i mean Free radical are based in the UK ?

//me is upest as me is a VERY BIG SPLITTERS FAN !

Still play it !

and yeah the wait for the sequal is too much to to handel

yeah i loved the first one!!!!!


ive seen some footage, looks awesome, im gonna go watch the new dvd of psw with it on later

I just got the demo today, the game has a Bond feeling, it seems like a much more thought out first player mode, its a must buy to me considering I loved the first one

Originally posted by IronFist

I wouldn\'t care if this game used the exact same engine as the first and only had new multiplayer levels.  I loved the first, and because I\'ve been playing Timesplitters multiplayer for more than a year, I would be crazy not to buy the second.  The better graphics and an actual single player game are just little extras that come with the great multiplayer game.

And I wish they implimented online in this game too, but I don\'t think they did.  I agree 100% -- it would make the game 5x as fun.

well I agree the 1st one was good, but it has to dramtically improve upon itself otherwise it will be a huge disspointment for lots. The 1st one was rushed and felt rushed in places.

and again the demo is already an improvement but I no longer will gush over somethign until there is reason too. The demo was just a 1st person shooter. We\'ve all played those before and thats all the demo revealed.

Without online play the game will have some let down for me since my only chance at any multiplayer fun will be online. To be honest, there is no intelligent reason for not including it. If THPS3 can do it then TS2 better do it

i think it looks liek a game ill have to pick up, i watched all 11 movie clips from the demo on a ps2 site, looks interesting and fun.

Originally posted by ddaryl
Without online play the game will have some let down for me since my only chance at any multiplayer fun will be online. To be honest, there is no intelligent reason for not including it. If THPS3 can do it then TS2 better do it.

A lot easier said than done.  Network programming is one of the most complicated programming concepts.  The libraries for it now just suck (Winsock -- oh how I hate you!)  And even worse, they don\'t even get the dreaded Winsock to start with.  They have to make up their own libraries from scratch or buy THPS3\'s networking library (if they are even selling it).  Sure, they could learn how to do it (afterall, they have learned how to program the PS2), but it isn\'t something that they can throw together in a week.

The THPS3 developers said that they were working on the online aspect along side of the single-PS2 part of the game.  It took them about a year to get it all set up and running.

In a few years, I think it will be stupid for FPSs not to have online gaming because the libraries for it will probably be distributed to every PS2 developer out there.  But right now, I think you are expecting too much from Free Radical.