TimeSplitters: Future Perfect

TimeSplitters: Future Perfect is the third installment of the first-person shooter from Free Radical Design, a studio formed by former developers of the famous GoldenEye 007. Playing as agent Cortez, the player travels through time across the decades, from the 1920s through future space stations to a parody of 1980s action movies, battling an alien zombie race trying to rewrite history. The game retains the series' characteristic tongue-in-cheek humor, over-the-top movie clichés, and a colorful array of weapons, enemies, and playable characters, among them Cortez himself in several versions of himself from different time periods.

Besides the story campaign, which can also be played co-op, Future Perfect offers the elaborate Mapmaker editor, which let players build their own maps, place enemies, and even assemble custom game modes — an unusually open tool for a console shooter at the time. There's also an extensive range of multiplayer modes for up to four players on one screen, from classic deathmatch to team-based and objective modes. The game is rounded out by the classic Arcade League, where the player completes special challenges with limited time or loadouts and unlocks bonus content, including additional characters and weapons for multiplayer.

The Xbox version was the only one of the three releases that could play multiplayer online via Xbox Live — on PlayStation 2 and GameCube, multiplayer combat remained limited to split screen or a system link between consoles via cable. Thanks to the Xbox's hard drive, the version also offered the ability to play your own music from the console in the background during the game, a popular platform feature at the time also used in other titles. Content-wise and in terms of gameplay, it was otherwise the same game as on the other platforms, with the same campaign, weapons, and map editor — the difference lay mainly in the more convenient online experience and small performance-related details.

Why play it: Thanks to online multiplayer via Xbox Live, which the other versions never got, and the ability to play your own music from the hard drive while playing, the Xbox version was the most convenient choice for fans of the series.