TimeSplitters 2

TimeSplitters 2 is a first-person shooter that requires players to kill enemies and complete objectives using a variety of weapons and tactics in different predefined scenarios. Armour and health bars on the sides of the screen lower when the player is shot, which can be increased by walking over body armor and first aid kits.

The weapons of TimeSplitters 2 include handguns, rifles, submachine guns, shotguns, rocket launchers, a grenade launcher, various explosives, a crossbow, a flamethrower, a fire extinguisher and a brick. They are of many different time periods, from the historical to the futuristic. Some weapons have an alternate fire which activates a feature such as launching a grenade or detonating a remote mine. It is possible to dual wield some weapons.

In 2401, humanity is in the midst of a war against the TimeSplitters, a sadistic alien race intent on bringing about the destruction of mankind. With the war going against them, the surviving humans of Earth's space marine army discover that the TimeSplitters are in possession of special objects called Time Crystals - green crystals that can provide power for time travel, allowing anyone to travel through time to any point in history. Discovering their enemy is attempting to use the Time Crystals to change the course of human history, thus bringing Earth to ruins, space marines Sergeant Cortez and Corporal Hart are sent to a space station overrun by TimeSplitters to retrieve the crystals.

However, the pair's arrival forces the TimeSplitters to remove the crystals and scatter them across various moments in human history through a time portal, with the pair arriving just as the last crystal is removed. Sealing themselves into the portal's chamber, Hart decides to stay behind and operate the device, while Cortez uses it to track down the crystals. Upon arriving in the first time period, Siberia in 1990, Cortez finds himself taking on the form of a female spy who was sent to investigate unusual activity in the area (in a similar manner to the TV series Quantum Leap). Undeterred, Cortez attempts to complete each person's agenda in their respective time period, all while tracking down the crystals that have influenced events in that point of history – ranging from Notre Dame in 1896, an Aztec temple in 1920, to a major conflict with robots in 2312.

In February 1999, 15 months before the release of Perfect Dark, several members of Rare that were part of the GoldenEye 007 development team, including Steve Ellis, Karl Hilton, Graeme Norgate, and David Doak, left to form their own company called Free Radical Design. After they developed the first TimeSplitters, TimeSplitters 2 went into development, trying to create a more fulfilling story mode alongside the Arcade and MapMaker modes. The game was developed over a 23-month period, with around half of that time devoted to creating the opening level.

It was also one of the first multi-platform games to be re-released on both the PlayStation 2 Greatest Hits and Xbox Classics labels.

The PlayStation 2 version of TimeSplitters 2 received "universal acclaim", while the GameCube and Xbox versions received "generally favorable reviews", according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. It won GameSpot's annual "Best Shooter on GameCube" award, and was nominated for "Best Shooter on Xbox", which went to MechAssault.

In comparison to the first game in the series, GamePro called "TimeSplitters 2 [...] everything the original game was and more" and "outdoes most other PS2 shooters in the process". GameSpot said that the game "may very well be the best split-screen multiplayer-focused first-person shooter ever created." The publication later named it the best GameCube game of October 2002.

The game features in the film Shaun of the Dead being played by the main characters Shaun and Ed.

The game is also playable within Homefront: The Revolution as an arcade machine within the Restricted Zone.