3. The Sheer Variety
In the current era of FPSs, most games offer just two modes for players to enjoy a story campaign and online multiplayer, two things that the Timesplitters series offered, along with much, much more. The story mode in each of the games could be completed by either one or two players, a stark contrast to most modern FPSs, where split-screen gameplay is now a rarity. Between two to four players could also compete in the games offline multiplayer against bots. Said multiplayer was the crown jewel of the series, allowing players to compete in one of many different game types (16, if my memory serves me correctly), ranging from traditional deathmatches and team games such as capture the bag and zones (identical to Call of Dutys Domination) to fan-favourite modes such as Virus, a survival game in which one player was infected and could pass on his/her infection through physical contact with other players, whose objective was to survive for as long as possible. An additional single-player campaign allowed players to compete in scenarios based on these game modes, whilst the second and third entries in the series also added Challenges to the mix. These varied from the likes of racing, curling and basketball-style mini-games to stealth missions and shooting range time trials. One strand of challenges in particular stood out above the rest, in which players were faced with an ever-increasing horde of zombies that they had to survive against for as long as possible. Sound familiar? The online element of the game was underutilised, given that only a small number of Playstation 2s were connected to the internet in the early noughties, but if a new game was to be released today, the ability to play huge games of Virus (and other unique game modes, such as BagTag and Flame Tag, in addition to deathmatch and its variants) against people from across the world would be a huge selling point.