TimeSplitters: Future Perfect

1001 Video Games

TimeSplitters: Future Perfect appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Humor

• Cortez's catchphrase is "Time to split!". Throughout the game he says the catchphrase before he begins to time travel, even though each of his sidekicks expresses their disliking of it.
• In the level "The Russian Connection", in the beginning of the level if the player ventures to the basement of a nearby shack, they can hear two guards talking through a door. The first guard expresses his displeasure of not having the same uniforms as the female troops, who get to wear breezy skirts on hot summer days. A disturbed second guard asks why he is telling him this information, and the first comments that he feels that the second guard is "not like the other troops." The second guard becomes disgusted as the first guard says "We are alone now, and the time for talking is behind us. Now is the time for action...". The first guard then tries to engage in sexual activities with the second guard, much to the second guard's extreme disliking and protest.
• Not to far inside the entrance to Khallos' secret underground base in the level "The Russian Connection", two henchwomen can be heard talking about the Brotherhood of Ultra-science (Jacob Crow's secret cult). One henchwoman expresses her hesitation to join, while the other, who has already joined, tries and assures her of the brotherhood's well-being. Towards the end, the hesitant henchwoman asks about the initiation ceremony, to which the first replies that it is completely fine, except that "it still hurts to sit down".
• In the level "The Khallos Express", two henchwomen can be heard. One notes that the train is in chaos and that can only mean one thing: Harry Tipper is on board. Both then go on discussing how they can sexual abuse Harry Tipper if they get a chance to capture him.
• In the level "The Khallos Express", if the player sits by the door to one of the bathrooms, a woman can be heard inside shouting "Argh, it's like giving birth!"
• There is a running joke throughout the game that is featured in every level except the last. In each level there appears and enemy soldier that is either drunk or delusional in some way. You can kill this man, but if you allow him to speak for long enough he will usually go on a rant about his work or his bosses.

References

• General references At the start of the level "You Take The High Road", R-110 is seen dancing in the submarine as it descends to the mining facility. This is a reference to the film Evolution*, where Harry Block is dancing in the lift descending to the meteorite crater.
• At the top of a flight of stairs in the horror-esque 'Hotel' multiplayer map, there are blooded hand prints on the wall accompanied by the word RUDREM, a reference to the words REDRUM (murder spelled backwards) from the novel The Shining. The stair room in the 'Hotel' map also looks completely identical to a room in The Shining.
• Edwina and Deadwina are spoofs on the girl from The Exorcist. When choosing Deadwina for the arcade mode, she quotes a line taken directly from the movie.
• In arcade mode, when you choose the Ginger Bread man, he says "bite my crunchy brown ass!". This is a reference to Bender's catchphrase in the cartoon Futurama, which is "Bite my shiny metal ass."
• In the mission "Something to Crow About", R-110 hacks into several security doors, which protest at first but eventually respond with "Welcome, friends!" in a sighing voice, a reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book series. In it, the ship doors would sigh in pleasure and thank the characters when being used.
• In the "You Genius, U-Genix" mission the security guard yells out "Game over man, Game over!" This line is taken directly from the 1986 film Aliens. In fact, if you choose the character in the mapmaker he is named Private Hudson, the name of the character who said the line in the film. Another line from the movie appears in the mission "Time to Split", when the marines yell out "They're coming out of the walls! They're coming out of the goddamn walls!”.
• Jacob Crow's last word is "Rosebud", a reference to the dying word of Kane from the movie Citizen Kane.
• On the level where you kill "Princess", the contraption that Jo-Beth is on is the fire cage from Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom.
• R-110's dying line is "I only wanted to be loved," a reference to the movie Battle Royale.
• Starship Troopers reference: When you are trying to help Past Cortez from being killed by the TimeSplitters on the beach, you can hear one of the men yelling "Come on! Do you want to live forever!".
• The character "Cyborg Chimp" is a primate conversion of Murphy/RoboCop from the movie RoboCop.
• The characters Leo Krupps and Schmidt have a very similar quote to the catchphrase of Tony The Tiger. The reason for this is that the voice over for these two characters, and Cortez as well, was done by Tom Clarke Hill, who is the current voice talent behind Tony The Tiger in the UK.
• The "Machine Wars" missions are a homage to the Terminator series. Both feature self-aware killer robots, a post-apocalyptic setting, and a squad of humans trying to protect the future of humanity. Also, both are also set in the future.
• The theme music from the Venice multiplayer level is rather long. A few minutes in, the music changes radically, and launches into a verse that is directly lifted from the movie A Clockwork Orange.
• There is a worker called Vlad the Installer, named after Vlad the Impaler, the ruthless aristocratic ruler whom Count Dracula is based on.
• There is a reference to Isaac Asimov in the briefing to the challenge "Balls Of Steel". It states the first rule of robotics, "A robot can never harm a human being".
• Three of the engines in the level "You Take the High Road" are named "Manticore", "Volante" and "Liparus." These are the names of boats in the James Bond movies. Also, when we first see Khallos, he is petting a cat, which is also a reference to Ernst Stavro Blofeld, a recurring Bond enemy. Interestingly, Khallos' cat is actually mechanical, a subtle reference that he is too pathetic an enemy to carry a real cat as an evil genius. Inside of his neck is a button which springs a trap on Cortez and Harry Tipper. Once freed from the trap, Cortez can go up to the cat and use it like an RC Car. The game even uses the cat in challenge scenarios where players must race the cat around various tracks.
• When you are at Crow's computer, when you activate the countdown/self-destruct sequence, the monitor will display the message "You didn't say the magic word" and will have a little guy laughing and shaking his finger. This a reference to the first Jurassic Park film.
• The character of Cortez is very similar to that of Riddick from Pitch Black and The Chronicles Of Riddick.
• The drill that takes Cortez and R-110 deeper to the end of the level "You Take The High Road" stops at 20,000, a reference to the book 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. Also R-110 alludes to another one of Jules Verne's works by saying Journeying to the centre of the Earth? Oooooh."
• The name for Robot Louis Stevenson, a robotic character, is a play on the famous author Robert Louis Stevenson's name.
• The level "What Lies Beneath", the boss battle for Princess contains references to the movie Jaws. Cortez must defeat the boss by shooting the gas canister in its mouth, the exact same way Jaws is defeated in the movie. When the fight starts, you can hear Anya say "smile, you bitch" over the radio, a line from the movie.

• When Cortez subverts the R-110 droid at the beginning of the "Machine Wars" level, it says "By your command". This is a reference to the Cylons from both incarnations of Battlestar Galactica.

• Video game references* Cortez's dancing during the credits is a parody of the dance routine during the credits of Minority Report: Everybody Runs.

• In one of the levels, you have to go undercover as a scientist. Your code name is "Freeman," a clear reference to the hero of Half-Life and Half-Life 2.
• In the level "What Lies Beneath", a computer comes on and contains an audio log. This is a reference to DOOM³'s feature of audio logs on PDA's. In addition, the man in the audio log seems to have trouble remembering the passcode for the supply locker, also a reference to the ridiculous amount of locker combos the game contains.
• The "Mansion of Madness" and "What Lies Beneath" missions bare strong resemblance to the game Resident Evil. Both take place in a mansion, have ravenous zombies, are locations for secret experiments, and are destroyed by a massive viral outbreak.
• Perfect Dark references* Story level "Breaking And Entering" is a mission that acts much similar to the Perfect Dark level "DataDyne Central: Defection". Both involve being on a rooftop, taking out security, and making your way to someone's private office, and then into the labs below the building. Also, like Joanna Dark, Amy Chen is also investigating a company's research.
• In "Something to Crow About", R-110 unexpectedly gets its own personality, much like Dr. Caroll.
• Timesplitters series references* Story levels "Machine Wars" and "Something to Crow About" play similar to "Robot Factory" in TimeSplitters 2, considering that you fight robots similar in ability to ChassisBots and SentryBots. Also, you get involved in taking out energy sources, much like the energy nodes in "Robot Factory".
• Peekaboo Jones's relatives Mordecai Jones and Elijah Jones are in TimeSplitters: Future Perfect and TimeSplitters 2 respectively.

Voice acting

Say, do any of the voices sound familiar? If you played Second Sight, that is. Free Radical uses the same voice actors.

Information also contributed by Mark Ennis, Matt Neuteboom, and STU2