TimeSplitters 2

TimeSplitters 2 for PlayStation 2 is a fast-moving first-person shooter from Free Radical Design, published by Eidos Interactive in October 2002. It is the second entry in the TimeSplitters series, following the studio’s PS2 launch-era original, and it broadened the concept into a full time-travel adventure with a substantial selection of competitive and creative modes. The PS2 edition arrived alongside Xbox and Nintendo GameCube versions, bringing its mixture of science-fiction action, historical parody, and split-screen play to a wider console audience.

The Story mode begins in 2401, when space marines Sergeant Cortez and Corporal Hart confront the TimeSplitters, an alien force using Time Crystals to interfere with history. When the crystals are scattered through a portal, Cortez follows their trail across ten missions set in sharply different eras. The journey moves from a Siberian dam in 1990 and the streets of 1930s Chicago to a 1920 Aztec setting, a Victorian-era cathedral, a Wild West town, and increasingly futuristic locations. Each chapter gives the player a self-contained scenario and a new identity to inhabit, while the larger objective remains the recovery of the crystals before the TimeSplitters can reshape humanity’s future.

Like the earlier game, TimeSplitters 2 plays from a first-person view and relies on direct, quick shooting rather than a cover system. Players search environments for weapons, ammunition, armour, health pickups, keys, and mission items while completing objectives that can range from reaching an exit to protecting allies or dealing with a local threat. Its arsenal deliberately spans the periods visited, mixing pistols, shotguns, rifles, crossbows, explosives, flamethrowers, and science-fiction weapons. Some firearms support alternate functions, and compatible weapons can be dual-wielded. The difficulty choice does more than strengthen enemies: higher settings add or promote objectives, making familiar levels longer and more demanding.

The campaign can be completed solo or in two-player cooperative play, giving the PS2 version a shared story option as well as its arcade combat. Its separate Challenge mode presents compact, rules-driven tests, while Arcade League pits one player against set scenarios and computer-controlled opponents. Success in these modes earns medals and unlocks material for the wider game, including characters, maps, modes, and cheats. That structure encourages players to learn weapon handling and arena layouts outside the campaign, rather than treating the extra modes as a simple collection of detached matches.

Arcade is TimeSplitters 2’s local multiplayer centerpiece. Up to four players can share the screen in customizable matches with selectable weapons, time or score limits, teams, bots, characters, and game rules. Familiar competitive setups sit beside the series’ own variations, including Capture the Bag and BagTag, in which holding the bag is the goal. The roster draws from the story and from deliberately eccentric character designs, matching the game’s playful tone. PlayStation 2 systems could also be linked for larger multiplayer sessions, while the core couch competition remains a defining part of the console release.

Another distinctive feature is MapMaker, a tile-based editor for constructing playable Arcade and Story layouts. Players choose a visual theme, connect premade rooms on a grid, and place practical elements such as weapons, spawn points, objectives, armour, and bags within a fixed memory allowance. It turns TimeSplitters 2 PS2 from a shooter with a fixed set of stages into a game that also supports personal experiments with arena design and custom scenarios. Free Radical Design was founded by former Rare staff whose earlier work included GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark, and the sequel’s responsive first-person action, extensive bots, unlockables, and local multiplayer make that design lineage especially clear. TimeSplitters 2 was followed by TimeSplitters: Future Perfect in 2005.