So, before we get into this, I just need to say that I haven't 100%ed the game yet. I'm currently tackling the story missions, I've only briefly touched the challenges, and so forth. In case you wanna know, I've done all the levels on easy and Normal, done one level on hard, and done section 1 of the challenges. Frankly, I think that's enough to warrant a review of the game because... Frankly, TS1 doesn't have much to it, so yeah.
So TimeSplitters 1. This... Sort of oddball in the community hasn't really been talked about at length. Yeah, we got articles describing it, but thanks to a lot of users having not actually played TS1, we haven't had much discussion.
I'm here to basically give my thoughts on the game, how it stacks up to TS2 and TSFP, and offer a sort of "review" on what the game and whether or not it still holds up.
To answer one of those questions immediately - No. It doesn't.
Let's get something straight. TS1 is basically TS2 but with none of the polish, in-depth story missions, or... Plot, really. TS1 is... Rough. Very rough. I mean, the goddamn thing is a PS2 launch title that came out in the same year as fucking Perfect Dark, what do you expect? It's rough, and it's clear the FRD guys didn't have much of an idea on what they were doing with the game outside of "Fast console FPS".
That's not inherently a bad thing. TS1's gameplay is certainly the fast-paced gameplay we've come to love about the series, but... It's basically been trumped by TS2.
Is that saying there aren't things about TS1 I like? Absolutely not. I'm honestly wondering what the hell happened to a lot of the characters in this game. Out of the 64 characters, only about a dozen or so have actually appeared in another TS game. Which is a shame too because there are a lot of awesome characters in this game.
Where's my sexed up Female Alien, Free Radical? You turned Christine Malone into a cop-themed stripper, why didn't you sex up a character that already had some fanservice-y traits? For shame.
Jokes aside, there are some interesting elements about TS1 that I do kinda wish were in other games. Although the mapmaker is super limited, the tilesets are honestly kind of amazing. admiralhowdy will attest to me on that. I also miss a good number of the weapons (Though they were sorely imbalanced, let's be honest), and even some modes. I really kinda like the idea behind Knockout. And there are some sweet maps in TS1 too.
However, outside of that, TS1 is rough. It doesn't have a story, the levels are all rough and generally kind of bullshit on harder difficulties, especially factoring in the "Speedrun" challenges that unlock characters and cheats (Mansion on Normal in five minutes and thirty seconds? Fuck off!). The AI is... Abysmal, but that's okay, since they have inhuman fire rates of weapons that should not be fired that fast and infinite clip size (This is exactly why Mansion is so goddamn ridiculous) to make up for it! And they can't flinch! Remember my problem with Corner Dicks (TM)? That applies for every enemy. Yeah.
Unless you really want to see where TimeSplitters started, you may as well skip this game. TS2 did the fast paced gameplay far better, and TSFP is probably the single most "complete" TimeSplitters game. TS1 is just... Sorely outdated at this point. TS2 is better, TSFP is better. This game only exists as the starting point to this amazing franchise. Which I guess gives it a point to exist.
Though I am legitimately curious as to what Rewind will do to the TS1 content. I'm totally down with a remaster for TS1 that takes out all of the dumb bullshit in it. Hell, it might make Mansion tolerable. and i'll get my sexed up female alien huehue
Anyways, that was my rambling quote unquote "review" of TimeSplitters 1. The tl;dr version - It's been outclassed, it's not great, but there are certainly elements I'd love to have seen in the sequels, Rewind will probably be awesome.
DMS out.