Episode 114 - Bring Back Bricks - TimeSplitters: Future Perfect

Podcasts AND zombies? This is seriously supernatural. Welcome! On this episode of the podcast, we’re going to be talking about TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, a game developed by Free Radicals and and the third and final entry in the TimeSplitters franchise, a console FPS franchise that rode the wave of multiplayer shooters released on consoles during the span of time between when Goldeneye released and when people got sick of them. This particular entry lands on the latter half of that timeline, and is in some ways better and worse for it. Better because there is clearly experience behind the design of this game, with a huge emphasis on variety both in the campaign and multiplayer modes, a bevy of content to unlock, and smaller, arguably more unnecessary, complexities hidden within each of these. And worse because it does feel a bit like a hodgepodge of FPS design philosophies, taking the originality it has in its theme and running with it over that huge amount of content in ways that may stretch it a bit too thin. Either way, if you’re nostalgic for this game, or even just this era of everyone sitting on the couch in the basement, arguing over who gets the good controller and drinking Surge, this game will help you travel back in time to relive that experience. We’re going to be talking about the impact of Rare’s FPS games on the N64 on how the genre, and therefore this game, developed, the aesthetics and theme that place this game somewhere between pastiche and parody to video games’ most favorite media genres, and we discuss which character might be a silly himbo. Thank you for joining us this week, Dan. This episode was an inevitability that we successfully put off for almost six years. The game holds a bit of special place for a subset of our childhood friends and was a preferred game to play in those after-school moments and weekend parties in the suburbs as a tween. But what about the rest of you? Did you play this game when it came out, or, even more unlikely, revisit it recently? Do you think it holds up as well as we did, or were we fully blinded by the heavy tinting of the nostalgia glasses? Let us know over on Discord or in the comments on YouTube. Either way, we hope you enjoyed the episode and join us next time when we talk about Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition!