2. The Lightheartedness
The Timesplitters series excelled at the fact that it never took itself seriously in the slightest. The games world wasnt populated exclusively by dark, bleak landscapes and dull space marine stock characters. Far from it. The series featured hundreds of characters in all, with a particular focus on the bizarre combination of monkeys and zombies, supported by everything from robots and spoof characters (such as the Bond-esque Harry Tipper) to fez-wearing bears, gingerbread men, anthropomorphic ducks and a walking cow carcass. The maps were similarly crazy, allowing such characters to wreak havoc on locales such as an Akira-inspired Tokyo, a Chinese restaurant, a sixties disco and an Aztec temple in addition to more traditional FPS settings, such as military bases. Such a light-hearted approach allowed for a silly yet highly enjoyable (and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny) experience, which would be a breath of fresh air in the current market, where FPS after FPS continuously tries to sell itself with gritty realism, a concept that has become highly saturated.