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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wallpaper_timesplitters_future_perfect350_2886.jpg]]
2[-[[caption-width-right:350:[[ASpaceMarineIsYou A]] [[TimeTravel time travelling,]] monkey-shooting [[ASpaceMarineIsYou Timespace Marine is you]]!]]-]
3->''"It's time to split!"''
4-->-- '''Sgt. Cortez'''
5
6In which universe can a player waltz about through time, sometimes masquerading as everything from an astronaut to a mobster to an explorer, wield P90s, laser beams, and blunderbusses, shooting up monkeys, gingerbread men, snowmen, gangsters, robots, lions, cowboys, Russian soldiers and Elvis impersonators?
7
8''[=TimeSplitters=]'', that's which one.
9
10''[=TimeSplitters=]'' is a series of [[Main/FirstPersonShooter First-Person Shooter]] games developed by the British development studio Free Radical Design.
11
12If these games cause you to draw comparisons to the heralded Nintendo 64 first-person shooters ''{{VideoGame/GoldenEye|1997}}'' and ''VideoGame/PerfectDark'', then that's expected. When Rare released the latter in mid-2000, much of the core team for both games left the studio: notably directors David Doak and Steven Ellis, artist Karl Hilton, and composer Graeme Norgate. Within a few months of Free Radical Design's founding, ''[=TimeSplitters=]'' was released for the then-brand new Platform/PlayStation2, its release coinciding with the console's launch in Europe. This game would be followed up by two sequels: The second, releasing with critical and commercial acclaim in 2002, and ''Future Perfect'' in 2005, a game many consider to be the most polished out of the series in terms of mechanics, story, and customization options.
13
14While the second and third installments introduced more complex levels and overarching objectives, the main premise of each level in a ''[=TimeSplitters=]'' game mostly remains the same: travel to a specific time period (ranging from 1930s Chicago to 1800s Old West to 2019 Neo-Tokyo and 2280 Planet X), apprehend the time-specific foes that dare cross your path, equip the then-latest in armaments, complete the objectives the game instructs you to do, and advance to the next stage. While the first game involved you simply stealing an item and returning to your spawn point (making the experience, for lack of a better word, glorified Capture The Flag with bots), ''2'' and ''Future Perfect'' introduced an overarching story, involving Creator/{{Vin Die|sel}}--er, [[Main/ComicBookFantasyCasting ''Sergeant Cortez'']] collecting Time Crystals sought after by the series' titular [=TimeSplitters=], a race bent on the erasing of human history as we know it.
15
16While the story varies greatly among the three games, persistent features of the series include [=MapMaker=], a simple grid-based level editor (predating ''VideoGame/Halo3'''s Forge Mode by seven years); Multiplayer modes including the traditional Deathmatch and Capture the Flag-type games, as well as other more original options, and Challenge mode, consisting of sets of single player challenges. The challenges range from collecting bananas as a monkey to shooting cardboard cutouts, and monkeys. A ''considerable'' amount of monkeys.
17
18As aforementioned, the games in the series include:
19* ''[=TimeSplitters=]'': Exclusive and launch title for the Platform/PlayStation2 in Europe (was intended to be a Platform/NintendoGameCube title as well, but Free Radical could not obtain a translated developers kit). [[{{Speedrun}} Short missions]] and lack of story (unless you [[AllThereInTheManual read the manual]]). Loved for its fast-paced action and in-depth multiplayer, but was criticized for long loading times and lack of a plot.
20* ''[=TimeSplitters=] 2'': The sequel basically did everything the first game did, only better. A better story involving [[MacGuffin time crystals]], a war, and many characters. More varied missions with actual objectives. The multiplayer added even more characters and levels. The game itself was closer to ''[=GoldenEye=]'', to the point of being considered the SpiritualSuccessor. Regarded as the best game in the series by fans. Originally released on [=PS2=], Xbox and [=GameCube=] in 2002, made playable on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S via the backwards compatibility program in 2021.
21* ''[=TimeSplitters=] Future Perfect'': The series' biggest mainstream hit. WAY deeper story, more characters, more upgrades, more comedy. However it was now more like a standard FPS, ditching the ''Goldeneye 64''-style controls for more typical console FPS controls[[note]]though the more classic ''Goldeneye'' style controls are available as an option[[/note]], and wasn't as fast-paced as the second game, although much more varied. Had the same awesome multiplayer and online capabilities, now with even bigger maps. Originally released on [=PS2=], Xbox and [=GameCube=] in 2005, made playable on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S via the backwards compatibility program in 2021.
22* ''[=TimeSplitters=] Rewind'': A [[FanRemake fanmade "greatest hits" remake]] in development. This game aims to capture all the best moments of the trilogy with the benefit of modern technology. The game is planned to initially ship with multiplayer only, although the team hopes to eventually be able to add both the singleplayer and co-op campaigns from the first 2 games.
23
24Development of an official fourth game is quite possibly one of gaming's most tragic tales of DevelopmentHell. After Free Radical Design went belly-up as a result of both an economic recession in the UK and their [[SoOkayItsAverage incredibly adequate]] [=PS3=]-exclusive title ''VideoGame/{{Haze}}'' failing to live up to its hype, they were subsequently bought out by Creator/{{Crytek}} and rebranded as Crytek UK, with development of ''[=TimeSplitters 4=]'' being put on hold. In 2012, it was revealed that there were no plans to resume development of ''[=TimeSplitters 4=]'', and after Crytek UK's closure in 2014, the franchise was all but confirmed to be left in dormancy. However, the announcement in August 2018 that Creator/THQNordic bought the IP ignited some hope for the series getting revived, and in May 2021, Deep Silver [[HopeSpot announced that they were resurrecting Free Radical Design and brought back two of Free Radical Design's founders, David Doak and Steve Ellis to make a new TimeSplitters game.]] Unfortunately, in December 2023, due to restructuring within Embracer Group following a failed $2 billion deal, [[YankTheDogsChain the newly reformed Free Radical was shut down, once again leaving the status of the series up in the air]].
25
26!!It's Time To Trope!:
27
28[[foldercontrol]]
29
30[[folder:All games]]
31* OneHundredPercentCompletion: Besides the campaign you had both Arcade leagues and challenge modes to complete.
32* ActionGirl: Several. Corporal Hart springs to mind, and Amy Chen.
33%%* AdventurerOutfit
34* AffablyEvil: Khallos, definitely in ''Future Perfect''. His ''[=TimeSplitters=] 2'' biography tells us that he has a lot of trouble with people making fun of him, claiming that he wears the eyepatch just to look cool, and that his real name is Archibald. Most of his villainy is implied to be petty vengeance toward such detractors.
35* AKA47: This became more widespread as the series wore on. While the first game allowed use of the Uzi, M16 and Mauser Pistol, ''Future Perfect'' ended with the Machine Gun, Soviet Rifle and Kruger 9mm.
36* AntagonistTitle: The [=TimeSplitters=] are an evil alien race that are trying to destroy humanity by using Time Crystals to alter Earth's history.
37* {{BFG}}: The series has lots of them. A flamethrower (where people set on fire run around), rocket launcher, homing rocket launcher, minigun... Well you name it!
38* BloodlessCarnage: ''[=TimeSplitters=] 1'' and ''2'' have no blood at all, making them a bit more family-friendly than ''FP''.
39* BodyArmorAsHitPoints: The series uses the same health[=/=]armor system as ''VideoGame/Goldeneye1997'' and ''VideoGame/PerfectDark''. ''Future Perfect'' is the only game in which health can be restored mid-level by finding a health pack.
40* BondVillainStupidity: Khallos revels in it.
41%%* CityOfCanals: Venice.
42* ComebackMechanic: The "Monkey Assistant" mode in multiplayer provides the player with the lowest score with an army of monkeys to help them out. There's also "Shrink mode" where the lower your score, the smaller you are and thus the harder you are to hit.
43* DestroyTheSecurityCamera: In the second game, on the first level, ''Siberia'', you need to shoot the security cameras to disable them so you don't get detected and sound the alarm. Same with ''Breaking and Entering'' in the third game.
44* EscortMission: Fairly common, and in ''Future Perfect'', often involves ''[[StableTimeLoop yourself!]]''
45* EverythingsDeaderWithZombies: Zombies feature in every game, though the exact circumstances behind their existence are different each time:
46** In ''[=TimeSplitters=]'', the level ''Mansion'' is populated by zombies risen by a curse on the building, due to a serial killer's unburied remains (which the player must capture and escape with).
47** In ''[=TimeSplitters=] 2'', the second half of ''Siberia'' has the player fighting Russian soldiers zombified by exposure to one of the time crystals and the frozen remains of a [=TimeSplitter=]. The level ''Notre Dame'', meanwhile, features zombies and other undead creatures animated by the magic of an EvilSorcerer and his cult.
48** In ''[=TimeSplitters=] Future Perfect'', the levels ''Mansion of Madness'' and ''What Lies Below'' feature zombies created by an ImmortalitySeeker's science experiments GoneHorriblyWrong.
49* FairCop: Lt. Christine Malone, who ends up looking more like a cop-themed stripper in ''Future Perfect''.
50* {{Fanservice}}: Mary Beth Casey, Cyberfairy, and pretty much every female having very, er, [[IncrediblyLamePun high-caliber guns]].
51* {{Foreshadowing}}: There's actually subtle hints as to the true nature of the [=TimeSplitters=] (finally revealed in the third game) dating all the way back to the ''plotless first entry.'' The biggest hint being that they [[spoiler:look like mutated humans in the first game]].
52* FurBikini: The Jungle Queen wears one.
53* GameBreakingBug: All three games suffer from occasional freezing, usually in the above mentioned mapmaker. The frequency of freezing seems to vary from disc to disc. It also tends to be more common in the GCN and Xbox ports, likely due to porting issues.
54* GunsAkimbo: Most pistols, [=SMGs=] and assault rifles can be dual-wielded. Oddly enough, you have to pick up a specific weapon to dual-wield it; picking up two of the same exact weapon won't do.
55* HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct: Cortez travels all over the relatively recent past, but never gets involved with ThoseWackyNazis - the closest you get are Prussian goons from World War 1. It's probably for the best.
56* IncredibleShrinkingMan: The Shrink powerup, as well as the Shrink gametype, can transform players into tiny, near-impossible-to-hit targets. Doubly effective if playing as a monkey.
57* KickingAssInAllHerFinery: Lady Jane doesn't mind wearing fur coats when going in guns blazing.
58* {{Leitmotif}}: All over the place, but one that fits very well with this trope is the Astro Lander melody's opening notes, which appear in the [=NeoTokyo=] level (where the Astro Lander cartridge is found) and the [=MapMaker=] Industrial tileset (which borrows its aesthetic from part of [=NeoTokyo=]).
59* LevelEditor: A rare example in a console series. They even allowed you to create story missions with their own objectives and AI programming for enemies.
60* MagicSkirt: Everyone except Jo-Beth Casey uses the "lots of shadow" type.
61* ManiacMonkeys: The monkeys, of course.
62* {{Mooks}}: Yeah this game is made out of them. Different mooks for all the different time-periods, too!
63* MoodWhiplash: The gothic horror of Notre Dame in 2 is followed by a bright futuristic alien landscape in Return to Planet X. The humorous spy parodies of the Harry Tipper levels in Future Perfect are then followed by Jo-Beth Casey's nightmare fuel horror levels.
64* MoreDakka:
65** The SPB-90 (much like ''VideoGame/GoldenEye1997'''s RCP-90) from the second game has the highest firepower of any weapon in the game, is among the most powerful guns, has extremely high accuracy and a scope. Did I mention you can have [[GunsAkimbo two]]? Incidentally, it's based on the real-life P90.
66** The longer you hold the trigger with the Plasma Autorifle, the quicker the rate of fire becomes, until it finally overheats.
67* MultiPlatform: The first game was a [=PS2=] exclusive, but the next two were on all three 6th gen home systems.
68* PrettyInMink: Lady Jane wears different fur-trimmed jackets in the games, but all show her wealth.
69* PutOnABus: The majority of the hero characters from the first ''[=TimeSplitters=]'' never made it to the second game, and only eight characters were in all three: Captain Ash, Harry Tipper, Chastity Detroit, The Badass Cyborg, Robofish, The Chinese Chef, The Gingerbread Man, and Duckman Drake.
70* RankInflation: The challenges and arcade league matches have unlisted platinum medal targets to attain, in addition to the gold, silver, and bronze targets.
71* RobotWar: Differs from the usual norm in there were humans and robots on ''both sides''.
72* ShoutOut: [[ShoutOut/TimeSplitters Look here.]]
73* SilentProtagonist: {{Subverted}}. Cortez won't say a word while in gameplay, but talks plenty in cutscenes. Interestingly, some levels in ''FP'' have him interacting with past/future versions of himself, so you can encounter the future you, who will talk, then later ''be'' the future you and not talk.
74* StableTimeLoop: Played straight in various vignettes throughout the third game, but averted for the overall plot arc.
75* StockBritishPhrases: With a Victorian/Edwardian twist. Intended as parody, since the developers are in fact British.
76* ThisBananaIsArmed: The Brick may sound stupid at first, but has a tendency to do a massive amount of damage.
77* ThrowDownTheBomblet: The Grenadiers use this as their main attack.
78* TimeyWimeyBall: Comes with the territory.
79* TokenMinority:
80** A member of the Jones family makes an appearance in every game.
81** Chastity Detroit, one of a handful of characters to appear in all three games.
82* TronLines: Some of the future levels, and the virtual-reality tilesets in Mapmaker.
83* {{Troperiffic}}: The games, particularly ''Future Perfect'', are basically built around every trope, fad and cliché you can find. Each time period is packed with as many staples of its fictional genre as possible.
84* UpdatedRerelease: ''[=TimeSplitters Rewind=]'' is a free PC remake of all three game's multiplayer modes. Due to technical limitations, split-screen play will not be included.
85* WritersCannotDoMath: The developers have admitted to being sloppy with dates assigned to the levels, which is why they tend to be both inaccurate to [[IWantMyJetPack real-world history]] and [[ContinuitySnarl previous games]].
86[[/folder]]
87
88[[folder:''[=TimeSplitters=]'']]
89* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
90** This game's story mode simply places you in a time period with no cutscenes and [[ExcusePlot barely any story]], and all levels simply require you to find an item and bring it to a specific point.
91** As a side-effect of the above, all campaign maps are available in arcade mode, although a few have some areas locked off. The other games have separate map selections for campaign and arcade modes due to the objective-based level design being incompatible with the fast-paced multiplayer action.
92** Challenge mode is the only extra single-player content, and it has to be unlocked by finishing all campaign levels. Later games would split things between Arcade League for regular matches with preset rules and Challenge for more unusual tasks, both available from the start.
93** There are no character stats, so all characters had the same health, speed, and accuracy, only differing in size.
94** Cortez didn't exist yet, despite being the closest thing the series has to a main protagonist.
95** [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking There are no monkeys in the game whatsoever]]. The next games in the series are firm believers that monkeys make every thing better.
96** The Splitters themselves were also more skeletal/zombie-like in appearance in this game, compared to their more alien-like designs in the later two sequels. They also attacked the player by throwing energy balls, unlike in the sequels, where they fired lightning at the player, and they did not have the ability to turn themselves invisible like they did later on in the franchise.
97** Stealth is also virtually non-existent in this game, a massive contrast to its sequels, where it is treated as an absolute must in most levels.
98** The levels in this game are also much shorter and more simplistic than the levels in the later two games and only have one objective, where you have to collect an item, and then return back to the spot you started into, while getting around the Splitters who show up and try to attack you after collecting said item.
99** The Sci-Fi handgun in this game also behaves more like an uzi and fires normal bullets instead of plasma bullets.
100* ExcusePlot: The game has barely any plot at all, and the little it has is barely related to the gameplay. The only story you get is a short blurb on the back of the game's box explaining that the [=TimeSplitters=] were [[SealedEvilInACan trapped in another dimension]] and escaped, and the story mode is a story mode in name only as the gameplay is nothing more than "find an item hidden somewhere in the stage and take it to a certain point", with the [=TimeSplitters=] appearing for no good reason once you pick up the item, and the different stages being completely unrelated to each other.
101* {{Foreshadowing}}: A very subtle example that most people don't notice. If you look closely at the models of the Splitters in this game, you will notice that they have more human designs (albeit, mutated zombified-looking humans). [[spoiler:This is a foreshadowing of the twist in ''Future Perfect'' that the Splitters are in fact former humans]].
102* GunsAkimbo: You can dual-wield ''[[GatlingGood miniguns]]''.
103* IWantMyJetPack: All of the future levels in the first game have dates unrealistically close to the what was the "present" at the time. Of note is Cyberden, which is filled with evil {{cyborg}}s and takes place in 2005, just 5 years after the game's release.
104* MoreDakka: There is a simple exploit you can do with the Pistol that makes it absolutely devastating. It delivers decent damage when used normally, however due to the fact that it fires as quickly as you press fire (R1) or secondary fire (R2), it is possible to fire extremely fast by alternating between the R1 and R2 buttons with a certain rapid rhythm, spending the entire clip in a couple of seconds. It also reloads very quickly, they are nearly pinpoint accurate and it is possible to dual wield them. With practice you'll be able to defeat any unfortunate foe who crosses anywhere near the center of your screen.
105* NoEnding: When you beat the game, it just simply ends with credits.
106* TheUnfought:
107** Female SWAT does not appear in "Chemical Plant", and Female Soldier does not appear in "Docks".
108** Skull Zombie does not appear in any of the three levels featuring undead enemies.
109** Float Alien is unlocked by completing "Planet X", but he doesn't actually appear in that level.
110* VillainProtagonist: The "Chemical Plant" and "Docks" levels, where you play a pair of crooks who are fighting the police as well as a rival gang to recover stolen jewels in the former, and fighting the army to steal a BriefcaseFullOfMoney in the latter.
111* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: Aside from the titular "Planet X"-level, it is not said where any of the story missions take place. In two of the levels, "Tomb" and "Cyberden", the locations can be extrapolated from environmental context as being set in the Valley of Kings in Egypt (The hieroglyphs and mummies are clearly Egyptian, and the architecture is based on the tomb of Ramesses II), and San Francisco (player character Chastity Detroit has "SFPD" written on her uniform), respectively. Going by the description in the sequel that Harry Tipper used to be a New York cop, the "Chinese" level is possibly set in New York. The others levels' locations are unknown.
112[[/folder]]
113
114[[folder:''[=TimeSplitters=] 2'']]
115* AmbiguousSituation: In story mode, it's unclear where the line between the character you're controlling and Cortez's consciousness is drawn:
116** When Cortez first enters the time portal to Siberia, he seems aware that he's morphed into Ilsa Nadir; her line of dialogue, ”It's all down to me now,” is also something Cortez himself might say in this situation (stranded in time with his partner back at the space station). That said, the very next level has Jake Fenton monologuing about his backstory, which Cortez should have no reason to care about. No levels past the first show any "possession", many having little-to-no dialogue; did Cortez come in "before" or "after" the cutscene in these cases?
117** Does Cortez even remember {{Body Surf|}}ing? He doesn't comment on how Anya's time machine lacks this "feature", and fails to recognize Harry and Khallos in the next game.
118** How aware is the possess-ee that Cortez is controlling them? Harry Tipper and Captain Ash seem to know what the Time Crystals are, with Harry seemingly putting them at a higher priority than stopping Khallos, but they clearly don't know who Cortez is when meeting him in ''Future Perfect".
119* AntiFrustrationFeatures: If killed by a sniper, a window will appear showing where the shot came from.
120* ArtisticLicenseHistory: The boss of "Wild West", The Colonel, is supposed to be [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar a former Confederate soldier]]. In 1853. An American flag seen in the level also has the wrong number of stars (Only 20, despite there being roughly 30 states around this time).
121* AwesomeButImpractical: The Electrotool. It's a weapon that fired a beam of electricity at your opponent. It sounds cool, but it doesn't do that much damage. The only use for it is during story mode where it's required for a story objective, and it can stun Chassisbots.
122* BaitAndSwitchComment: The biography of Stumpy, a midget clown:
123--> "Stumpy is the adopted son of Sergio the Magnificent. The strongman despairs of Stumpy's errant nature and malicious pranks, but hopes in his heart that one day Stumpy will grow up to be a little taller."
124* BigDamnHeroes: In the Notre Dame level, the Hunchback of Notre Dame shows up with a shotgun to help you defend the last Maiden from a wave of zombies.
125* CheckpointStarvation: Each story mode level only has one checkpoint. In some missions, like the Atom Smasher, said checkpoint is near the start of the stage, forcing you to replay most of the level if you die near the end.
126* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: AI players aren't affected by the Plasma Rifle's overheating mechanic, and often fire at full speed at all times.
127* CreepyCathedral: Notre Dame itself, having been taken over by a cult under the Splitters influence. The Hospital multiplayer level is also half this trope (The other half being [[AbandonedHospital the obvious]]).
128* DarkerAndEdgier: The first game had no story, so anything involving the [=TimeSplitters=] and the near-extinction of humanity is this to the prior game. Plus places like Notre Dame and the Robot Factory are just flat out creepier and more bleak than the first game's locales. That being said, the inclusion of even more wackier characters in the multiplayer and the introduction of the Monkey softens it up on the multiplayer side of things.
129* DownInTheDumps: The Scrapyard, a futuristic robot dump that houses a massive complex underneath (only accessible in Assault).
130* EliteMooks: Timesplitters are tougher than regular mooks, and tend to teleport into the level infinitely after you retrieve the time crystal.
131* FirstPersonGhost: Not only do you not have a character model for your body, but none of the guns are even rendered being held by hands. Justified in that making ''several dozen'' different sets of hands for the vastly different multiplayer character models (which include things like monkeys, aliens, and cyborgs), or even the dozen or so different player characters in story mode, would have taken ''a lot'' of development time.
132* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Reaper Splitter move around by teleporting in Story Mode gameplay, but never do so in cutscenes. Given they spend the entire game trying to get through a door, they apparently weren't meant to "canonically" have that ability and it was a way to get around making pathfinding AI.
133* GunsAkimbo: Taken to a simply silly degree, as you can dual wield ''shotguns''. [[ShoutOut It's best not to ask]] [[{{VideoGame/Marathon}} how you reload them.]]
134* KingMook:
135** Most of the boss enemies (i.e. Big Tony, Jacques de la Morte, the Colonel, and Khallos) use the normal enemy A.I. moveset and just have a lot more health, requiring several dozen bullets to bring down (thankfully they all still get hitstunned). Though there are a few unique boss enemies such as the helicopter gunship, the portal daemon, and the Dark Machinist's combat machine.
136** Sadako in the Neotokyo level is tougher than a regular enemy, but not as tough as a normal boss, and even lacks a boss health bar.
137* MissingSecret: The GasMaskMooks fought near the end of the Siberia level can never be unlocked. The same applies to one of the three civilians in Chicago (The Consultant), and ''all ten'' of the civilians in Neotokyo.
138* NostalgiaLevel:
139** "Return to Planet X" is a remix of the first game's "Planet X".
140** The "[=TimeSplitters=] 'Story' Classic" set of challenges are a throwback to the first game's "find an item and return to the starting location" style of missions.
141* OptionalStealth: Some missions have an optional stealth objective. The Neo Tokyo level is the only one with a compulsory stealth objective (trailing a hacker) for every difficulty level.
142* PowderTrail: The player character is required to do this to get an NPC out of a wild west jail. One must create a powder trail from underneath a lantern inside the jail to a wagon loaded with powder barrels pushed against the wall outside, then shoot the lantern off the ceiling.
143%%* RevolversAreJustBetter: Played straight.
144* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Inferred. Simply getting the crystal is not enough; The portal back to the future only appears after you've completed all mission objectives.
145* StalkingMission: The first half of Neo-Tokyo.
146* TheUnfought: There are plenty of characters who seem like they ''should'' have appeared in a certain level, but don't. Examples:
147** Capt. Pain, Trooper White, and Trooper Grey are absent from ''Siberia''. Trooper White's role is instead filled by an unplayable PaletteSwap of him.
148** You never fight any Gargoyles in ''Notre Dame''.
149** Ample Sally and Lean Molly are referred to as members of The Colonel's gang, but don't appear in ''Wild West''.
150** There are no Dinosaurs in ''Aztec''.
151* UpdatedReRelease: An updated version of ''[=TimeSplitters=] 2'' with support for up to 4k resolution was included as an EmbeddedPrecursor EasterEgg inside Dambusters[=/=]Crytek's ''VideoGame/HomefrontTheRevolution''. Normally, only the first 2 levels are playable, but data miners have known for a while that the data for the entire game was actually present. One of the developers revealed in 2021 that said hidden content (including the full story campaign and arcade mode) could be unlocked with cheat codes, but the game is not fully stable and crashes whenever Reaper Splitters spawn in. A fan patch exists for the PC version that fixes most of the crashes (other than the Neo Tokyo level) and enables all the unlocks without the need to enter the cheat codes. In late 2021[=/=]early 2022, a more extensive mod called ''[=TimeSplitters=] 2: Redux'' was released, which fixes all major bugs and makes the game's story mode fully playable from beginning to end, and even allows the game to be launched directly from desktop instead of having to find the Easter Egg inside ''Homefront'' each time. However the mod still has some graphical glitches and multiplayer and the level editor are not yet functional.
152[[/folder]]
153
154[[folder:''[=TimeSplitters=] Future Perfect'']]
155* TheSixties: The levels involving Harry Tipper fits this trope.
156* AbandonedCatchphrase: The Hero Cortez had a catchphrase, 'Time to Split' which he always loudly exclaims before shifting to another time. Viciously played upon in the third game, where this is met with blank stares and disbelief by his partners in time, sometimes causing Cortez to falter and just give up. It could be an example of CharacterizationMarchesOn, since the characters in ''[=TimeSplitters=] 2'' were pretty one-dimensional, until ''Future Perfect'', in which the characters actually have personalities and dialogue.
157* AIBreaker: Experimenting in Mapmaker shows that Story mode AI has quite a few glaring limits:
158** Zombies and robots will only act as such when they spot you and go into "attack mode". Prior to this they move like human enemies. Robots in Mapmaker will flinch like humans even after that.
159** Zombies armed with guns can only fire a single shot and thus are incapable of using automatic weapons.
160** Only zombies can use the Baseball Bat correctly. Humans use it exactly like fists, and when a far distance away motion as if firing a gun. Robots ''always'' try to fire it like a gun.
161** Human and Robot AI use the Harpoon and Injector like automatics. Only the Deep Diver can use the Harpoon properly, in fact, it's the only weapon he can use properly at all, as he tries to fire every other weapon the same way.
162** While the Ghost Gun drains HP in multiplayer, it can ''only'' harm ghosts in Story. Obviously, the AI doesn't know this.
163** Even if you never use Mapmaker, you can encounter this odd behavior in the "Sammy Hammy Namby Pamby" challenge mission. At one point you enter a tunnel with two enemies behind cover; one with grenades and the other with a shotgun. Both of them behave as if they were using an SMG, which makes this spot particularly deadly as the former enemy will likely flood the tunnel with explosions.
164* AnachronisticClue: In ''Scotland the Brave'', set in 1924, you pick up a strange-looking SMG and Anya notes the gun isn't on file for the time period. She posits it may have been custom-built. [[spoiler:Yeah, by time travelers with technical knowledge from the 1960s.]]
165* AntiFrustrationFeatures: The Virus missions are ''much'' easier than the ones in ''[=TimeSplitters=] 2'', since the non-infected AI players actually ''try'' to avoid the one that's "it", plus the weapons are better, the first one has [[OneHitKill One Hit Kills]], and there's only two missions as opposed to three. There's also the Geiger counter that indicates how far away the nearest infectee is, and the radar is always active in both missions.
166* AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever: The mid-boss of "Something to Crow About" is a 50-60 foot tall Goliath battle robot. Fortunately, it's not quite a DamageSpongeBoss and can be taken out with a reasonable amount of gunfire, about 140 plasma autorifle rounds, although this is partially because you're equipped with very powerful plasma weapons. There's also Princess, the giant meat monster fought at the end of each of the two haunted mansion levels, who's so big you only ever fight its upper torso.
167* BagOfSpilling: While the use of this trope in ''2'' was {{Justified}}, as Cortez was [[BodySurf Body Surfing]] through time, it's far less understandable here when his arsenal resets between each level, including levels which directly follow on from the previous one.
168* {{Bathos}}: In the form of an UncomfortableElevatorMoment. In the scene, Cortez and Amy Chen had just fought their way through the U-Genix security forces and are preparing to attack the secret laboratory when the following exchange happens:
169-->'''Amy Chen''': This should take us to Crow's secret lab!\
170'''Cortez''': Gragh! '''I'm ready!''' ''(presses elevator button a few times)''\
171'''Amy Chen''': I pressed it already!\
172'''Cortez''': Yeah, right...gragh... ''(watches slow-moving elevator light)'' So...been with the agency long?\
173'''Amy Chen''': Um, yeah. Uh, three...three years in May.\
174'''Cortez''': Huh. ''(beat)'' You get dental?\
175'''Amy Chen''': Yeah...yeah...\
176'''Cortez''': Huh, that's good...''(they both shift around uncomfortably)''
177* BigBad: Jacob Crow, a MadScientist obsessed with achieving immortality through the use of the time crystals. Every mission is spent fighting mooks or monsters that are related to him in some way, and his experiments are revealed to be [[spoiler:the origin of the [=TimeSplitters=] themselves]].
178* BloodierAndGorier: The previous two games had next to no gore besides zombie decapitations and any blood or decayed flesh being part of the character models. ''Future Perfect'' adds blood to every injury and pools of it beneath bodies, has notable gore in the two mansion story levels, and a weapon that outright causes foes to expand before ''popping'' violently.
179* BodyOfBodies: "The Creature" or "Princess" from the mansion levels.
180* BodyguardBabes: The 1960's levels have you and Harry Tipper battle a James Bond villain whose elite guard are made up entirely of women, bluntly titled "The Booty Guard".
181* BookEnds: The last act of the game involves [[spoiler:returning to the island of Urnsay in the 1920s, almost at the exact time you left it at the end of ''Scotland the Brave'']], and [[spoiler:fighting off Crow's time assassins in 2401, against the backdrop of the game's first mission]].
182* BoomHeadshot: The best way of dealing with zombies and robots, due to their increased health, especially in the case of the zombies. Subverted with the handful of [[RaisingTheSteaks zombified butchered cow carcasses]] at the end of the haunted mansion level; they have no head for you to pop, so you have to just shoot them until they die.
183* BossOnlyLevel: The final level of the game, [[TitleDrop Future Perfect]], is practically this - you only fight a handful of Time Assassins, walk down a short and mostly empty cave to collect the Time Crystals, and then fight [[spoiler: [[FinalBoss 'Splitter Crow]]]].
184* BroadStrokes: ''Future Perfect'' tends to ignore or alter many things from ''[=TimeSplitters=] 2''. A few examples would be:
185** Dr. Peabody was implied to be a ReluctantMadScientist in ''[=TimeSplitters=] 2'', but in ''Future Perfect'' is fully on Khallos' side. He's also vastly different in appearance, being an actual medical doctor as opposed to a nuclear physicist.
186** The ''[=TS2=]'' and ''TSFP'' versions of Jo-Beth Casey are massively different in appearance and personality, and exist several decades apart.
187** Venus Starr was a DamselInDistress in ''[=TS2=]'', but is treated as a villain in ''TSFP'', with an Arcade League mission having her forming an OutlawCouple with Jared Slim, who was part of the same gang that took her hostage.
188** Cortez himself looks rather different[[note]] armor-mounted flashlight and bracer of knives are both missing, gloves are now fingerless, goggles no longer have a strap[[/note]], and the ship he arrives in at the beginning of the game looks nothing like the ship he escaped in at the end of ''[=TimeSplitters=] 2''.
189** The [=TimeSplitter=] race [[spoiler:is revealed to be an artificial race created by Crow in his bid for immortality, whereas the previous game implied they were alien invaders]].
190* BrickJoke: The final level has some EnemyChatter that mirrors a conversation in the first level of ''[=TimeSplitters=] 2''.
191-->'''Shivers''': We shouldn't be in the research center without security clearance!
192-->'''Nikolai''': I'm telling you. I heard gunshots!\
193\
194'''John Smith''': I'm telling you, I heard gunfire!
195-->'''Fergal Stack''': Don't be stupid, we're at the bottom of the ocean. No one can get down here!
196* ByWallThatIsHoley: Early into "Scotland the Brave", the side of an old brick house topples over onto Captain Ash. Thankfully, he just so happened to be lined up with its window.
197* CardCarryingVillain: Khallos and Crow.
198* CatchPhrase: "Time to split!" "Dammit!"
199** The former usually getting a confused or creeped out reaction, the latter once being shouted so loudly that, despite being shouted in 2052 could be heard in 1969.
200* ChainedToARailway: Kitten Celeste, in ''Khallos Express''. The mission itself takes place on the train set to run her over.
201* ChekhovsGun:
202** A minor example is the dart gun in ''You Genius, U-Genix''... [[spoiler:it turns out to be the weapon that [[OneHitKill one-shots]] the mutants in said level]].
203** A major example is the entire island in Scotland the Brave. [[spoiler:It really ''was'' the answer Cortez was looking for, but the crystals were ''under'' the island, deep below sea level]].
204* ChivalrousPervert:
205-->(The characters are looking down an incredibly deep and dark ladder, with the sounds of ''something'' sloshing around and gurgling)
206-->'''Jo-Beth''': You go first.
207-->(camera pans down to Jo-Beth's incredibly short skirt)
208-->'''Cortez''': ...Okay.
209-->'''Jo-Beth''': (Stops, thinks, shrugs)
210* CloudCuckoolander: R-110 becomes one after getting severely short-circuited.
211-->'''R-110''': An Electro-Tewl!! [[LeetSpeak Yull need dat!!]]
212-->'''R-110''': I'm pretending all these robots are humans! Robots are FAR superior to humans, you know! Humans go "Squish" at the slightest touch!
213-->'''R-110''': I'll catch up! Don't kill anything without me!
214-->'''R-110''': EAT MY LASER! EAT IT! (which is quickly changed to "EAT MY PRIMITIVE PROJECTILE" as the time period shifts to the past).
215* CometOfDoom: At the end of the game, the source of the Time Crystals that allowed Crow to cause all the time-travel related madness is suggested to be a meteor that crashed into the Earth in the distant past.
216* ContinuitySnarl: In the first game, Tipper was a cop in 1970. In the second, an "Ex-cop turned secret agent" in 1972. Yet in this game, Harry is not only a secret agent in ''1969'', he's been fighting Khallos for "Over twenty years" according to some EnemyChatter. Furthermore, Christine Malone is reintroduced and is explicitly referred to as Tipper's former police partner, so this level is clearly supposed to come LAST in the timeline.
217* CreatorProvincialism: Almost every vehicle in the game is right-hand drive, which makes a bit of sense as Free Radical is based in the UK. The one exception to this? The truck in ''Scotland the Brave'', i.e. the one place in the game where the vehicle ''should'' be right-hand drive.
218* DeadpanSnarker: Anya, most of the time.
219* DeflectorShields: The burlier battle robots in Something to Crow About have energy shields that you need to take down with the electrotool before you can damage them with normal weapons.
220* DemotedToExtra:
221** The [=TimeSplitters=] themselves, oddly enough, barely feature in this installment at all - the only [=TimeSplitter=] variety that appears are Berserker Splitters, and while the plot concerns [[spoiler:their creator, Jacob Crow]], the [=TimeSplitters=] are never battled outside of Cortez' native time period of the 2400s. This does have a reasonable in-story reason though [[spoiler: Cortez stole the crystals from their time machine at the end of T2. That is one of the reasons they are attacking the base in the first place.]] Funnily enough, your profile stats keeps track of how many Timesplitters you've killed, even though they're only in the two 2401 levels (in a single playthrough you'll only kill a few dozen of them).
222** The third incarnation of Gretel, despite being a playable character in the previous two campaigns, is only a multiplayer cameo in ''Future Perfect'', while the third incarnation of her partner R-100 is Cortez' teammate for several missions in the endgame.
223** Chastity Detroit is also demoted to multiplayer-exclusive having previously been bumped down to second-player. Unlike Gretel she doesn't even get a redesign and just uses her ''[=TimeSplitters=] 2'' model.
224* DenserAndWackier: The plot of ''Future Perfect'' is overall silly compared to the more serious plot of the second game.
225* DoNotDropYourWeapon: While typical, this trope can spoil one surprise. In ''The Mansion of madness'' where you finish the first battle in the attic, there are downed zombies with shotguns that you can't pick up, and an alert player will know that zombie will rise up and attack. The zombie is invulnerable until rising, but the player can force it to do so with the flamethrower.
226* DroughtLevelOfDoom: The ZombieApocalypse level, "The Mansion of Madness", doesn't have as many ammo drops as the other levels. Subverted in that the existing ammo drops still hand out plenty of ammo.
227* ElaborateUndergroundBase: [[spoiler:Crow's time crystal mine/fortress of Kronia, beneath the waves of Urnsay island in the 1900s. Anya muses that the facilities must have taken years to build, but "that's the beauty of time-travel; you start construction, and then come back when it's finished!"]]
228* EnemyChatter: Used hilariously, such as the [[DrinkingOnDuty drunk guards]].
229--> ''Drunk Russian'': I am best... Bestest guard!
230* {{Fanservice}}:
231** Arial da Vinci moans orgasmically when you select her, and is dangerously close to naked.
232** Jo-Beth Casey has a skirt that is basically a sleeve's worth of fabric held on by a belt. That's not even counting her enormous breasts in a shirt two sizes two small and the word '''SLUT''' printed on top.
233* FastRoping: The security guards in the "Breaking and Entering" mission do this, busting through windows from the outside.
234* FauxAffablyEvil: Jacob Crow. [[spoiler: His goal is achieving eternal life. All of his villainy is just a side-effect of his careless methods of going about his research. He's mostly just an ignorant moron. Though, after he finally achieves immortality, Crow eventually goes off the deep end and is quite cheerful about his "children" the Timesplitters wiping out the human race.]]
235* ForgottenFallenFriend: Corporal Hart, who by the game's timeline died less than an hour or so ago, is never mentioned at all during any of the story dialogue; this is lampshaded by ambient dialogue in the first mission in which a {{Redshirt}} asks "Hey, what happened to Corporal Hart?" and none of the other Redshirts have any idea who he's talking about.
236* FriendlyFireProof: Averted, enemies can damage each other by accident via gunfire or explosives, and the A.I. doesn't seem to be able to recognize when a friendly is blocking its line of fire. The same applies to you and your current [=NPC=] ally; in fact in certain fights, such as the Deer Haunter boss fight in which the enemy is in your face the majority of the time, your ally can be as much a threat to you as the enemy as many of their shots will inevitably hit you.
237* GameBreakingBug:
238** As nice as the level editor is, it is notoriously glitchy. Certain characters, tile placements, and various other features are time-bomb crashes. [[GoodBadBugs Of course, some of the less dangerous glitches are useful for the level design, such as one-way passages, invisible walls, and even an entire 6th and 7th floor to build on.]]
239** In the ''Mansion of Madness'' level, occasionally Jo-Beth Casey will suddenly become hostile toward you, shooting you on sight. And killing her nets you a game over. She'll stop once you get to the next checkpoint, but it can be difficult to get there when you have her blasting away at you.
240* GameplayAndStorySegregation: After Cortez's first trip through a wormhole in "Scotland The Brave", backtrack into the previous room and you'll likely see the bulletholes and blood spatters from your fight with the three EliteMooks, even though you technically just went back in time to before it happened. Later levels hide this better with a PointOfNoReturn after every wormhole cutscene.
241* GenreShift: Mansion of Madness and What Lies Below limit you to slow-firing, low capacity, long reload weapons (a revolver and a double barrel shotgun) and have you fighting through a creepy mansion of zombies.
242* GenreThrowback : Just about every level is a pastiche of another first-person shooter.
243** Time to Split: ''Franchise/{{Doom}}'' (particularly ''VideoGame/{{Doom 3}}''), ''VideoGame/{{Halo}}'' and other sci-fi space marine shooters
244** Scotland the Brave: historical shooters, particularly around World War I, though it does include elements of the then-marketable craze of World War II shooters.
245** The Russian Connection: ''Film/JamesBond'' and the ''VideoGame/GoldenEye1997'' video game adaptation.
246** Mansion of Madness/What Lies Below: zombie games, especially the first ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil1''.
247** Breaking and Entering: stealthy, near-future shooters, particularly ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' and ''VideoGame/PerfectDark'' (fittingly, given the developer).
248** You Genius, U-Genix: ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' with splashes of ''VideoGame/Doom3''.
249** Machine Wars[=/=]Something to Crow About: The ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' franchise and its various licensed games, with a bit of ''VideoGame/{{Halo}}'' as well.
250* GroinAttack:
251** Jo-Beth Casey gives Cortez a swift kick to the 'nads when they first meet. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMx0GBLtQTo&feature=related "You're no zombie!"]]
252** Hit recognition deaths recognize the groin as a separate hitbox, resulting in many a mook or player reacting to a groin shot kill accordingly. Even the announcer makes note of such kills.
253-->'''Announcer''': Hole in one!
254* HackedByAPirate: In ''What Lies Below'', when Cortez checks the files on Crow's computer and the self-destruction sequence starts, [[ShoutOut an animation]] appears with Crow [[FingerWag wagging his finger]] and the caption [[Film/JurassicPark "You didn't say the magic word"]].
255* HeavilyArmoredMook: In "You Take the High Road", you'll fight several mooks wearing heavy 1920's diving suits. They're noticeably more durable than regular mooks, having about twice as much health and requiring a little over two dozen [=K-SMG=] rounds to bring down, and are armed with hard-hitting harpoon guns, but are limited to a very slow walk.
256* HeelFaceBrainwashing: Cortez gets the jump on R-110 and overrides his "kill all humans" programming, rewiring him into your new companion.
257* HotterAndSexier: Just about all the female characters would make innuendo or moan suggestively when selected. Even the robots.
258-->'''Gretel MK.3:''' ''(MachineMonotone)'' With a bit of lubrication, I'm ready for anything.
259* IdiotBall: Cortez grabs this at the end of ''You Genius U-Genix'', when he [[spoiler: explains to the main villain his entire evil scheme, at a time before the main villain had even learned of the time travelling antics his alternate selves were up to. This means that when a younger Crow arrives, they're able to skip the InfoDump and immediately escape into the timestream together.]]
260* ImmediateSequel: The game kicks off right where ''[=TimeSplitters=] 2'' had left off - Cortez in a shuttle, travelling back to Earth with the time crystals he had collected from that game's story missions.
261* ImmortalityImmorality: [[spoiler:It's revealed the entire time war was the result of one man's obsession with discovering the secret of immortality.]]
262* InstantSoprano: Cortez squeaks out a high-pitched "Yeah" shortly after being [[https://youtu.be/od8914yG8ZI kicked in the groin]] before his voice goes back to normal.
263* ItCanThink: Implied with the zombies in Story Mode, who, unlike before, are perfectly capable of using guns.
264* LampshadeHanging: Done in some of character descriptions, and probably elsewhere as well.
265** [[spoiler: Corporal Hart]]'s presence as a multiplayer character. [[spoiler: She dies near the end of ''[=TimeSplitters=] 2'', but her ''Future Perfect'' description lampshades her presence anyway, even stating that it should no longer a factor as [[BreakingTheFourthWall you have completed Future Perfect's storyline]], as it is required to unlock her, since the whole [=TimeSplitter=] war would have never happened to begin with... Then it asks why there is a [=TimeSplitter=] character... Foreshadowing? Joke?]]
266* LighterAndSofter: In this installment, the cutscenes flesh out the characters more, and with much more humor.
267* LocomotiveLevel: ''Khallos Express'' takes place on a train armed with nuclear missiles.
268* LudicrousGibs: The mutants in "You Genius, U-Genix". The Injector is also guilty of this as well.
269* MechaMooks: Quite a few; you have the sentry bots in "You Genius, U-Genix", the majority of the enemies in the Machine Wars levels, and the steampunk Victorian robots in "You Take the High Road". They typically have 2-3 times the durability of standard humans, though the humanoid ones in the Machine Wars can be destroyed quickly by [[CranialProcessingUnit targeting their head]].
270* MindScrew: Being a game about time-travel, this is to be expected.
271** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fYsQGECi_U The credits sequence shows Cortez dancing in Harry's disco club]]. How did he get there if time-travel no longer exists?
272** The game itself invokes this in Hart's profile: In order to unlock her you have to beat the game and erase the [=TimeSplitters=] from history, thus also undoing her death, yet you can still play as a Beserker Splitter.
273** In the penultimate level "The Hooded Man" the bridge halfway through the level is destroyed after the Timeplitter Mothership, instead of before it as in the first level "Time To Split". That's not the weird part, the weird part is that for this level and this level alone, Co-Op mode is ''canon''. Most of the story doesn't make sense for Co-Op mode, with whomever Player 2's character is for the time period [[GamePlayAndStorySegregation being shoehorned into scenarios they clearly aren't supposed to be in]]. For "The Hooded Man", there's no obvious "Deuteragonist" for Player 2 to be, meaning they get saddled with one of the random marines that are supposed to be helping Past Cortez unawares of Future Cortez helping them. Yet this random marine in Co-Op is apparently meant to be there; [[RewatchBonus pay attention during "Time To Split" and you can see the marine calling Future Cortez to get off the bridge before it's destroyed]].
274* MookCarryover: It turns out that [[spoiler:the steampunk mooks from 1920, and the time assassins that attack Cortez in 2401, are all Khallos' Russian henchmen from the 1960s, recruited by the Brotherhood of Ultra-Science and temporally displaced to help Crow mine the time crystals from below Urnsay island.]]
275* MoreDakka: [[LethalJokeItem The Monkey Gun]] fires off 64 rounds (its entire clip) in a around 2 seconds. Using it properly has less to do with aiming at your opponent, and more to do with lining up two targets in a line.
276* [[invoked]]{{Narm}}: Cortez's CatchPhrase is regarded as this in-universe, [[RunningGag frequently being met with blank stares and]] [[{{Beat}} embarrassed silence]].
277* NightmarishNursery: The child's room, located in the attic of the Mansion of Madness, is a creepy playroom containing numerous offputting details, such as a rocking horse that moves on its own, blood on the walls, letter blocks that spell out the word "[=HAG=]", and a chalkboard with messages such as [="HELP US"=] and "[[Literature/TheShining REDRUM]]".
278* NinjaPirateZombieRobot: With monkeys! The game has a Ninja Monkey, a Robot Monkey ''and'' a Zombie Monkey. They're all separate monkeys, but they're all playable characters that you can use side by side in arcade mode.
279* NormalFishInATinyPond: The steam-powered Victorian robots in 1924 are much cruder than the futuristic robots from the Machine Wars, but since you're armed with 1924 weaponry and not plasma blasters, they're actually ''much'' tougher to take down and are some of the hardiest enemies in single player, requiring a little over a full mag of [=K-SMG=] fire to bring down. They also lack a CranialProcessingUnit you can target as a weak point.
280* ReactionShot: Parodied. At the climax of "You Genius, U-Genix", Cortez's frustrated SkywardScream cuts to a confused janitor in the hallways... and then cuts to Harry Tipper mid-coitus in 1969, somehow able to hear Cortez from across time and space.
281* RevolversAreJustBetter: The Revolver is a slow-firing weapon with a very loud and distinctive sound, and lacks a HollywoodSilencer. It bizarrely shares its programming with the game's assortment of [[ShortRangeShotgun Short-Range Shotguns]], meaning its damage output scales depending on how close the target is. This makes the Revolver useless for long-distance firefights, while in close quarters it becomes more akin to a HandCannon.
282* RobotBuddy: Parodied with R-110, a lethally efficient and technologically useful battle droid who gets infected with a personality. A goofy, giddily bloodthirsty personality.
283* RuleOfFun: Dozens of the playable characters in multiplayer are completely nonsensical. Examples include a giant sock, a six-foot severed hand with giant matchsticks for arms and legs, a man-sized floating whale in a bowler hat surrounded by a school of fish, and four types of monkeys.
284* RunningGag: Almost every level (except "Time To Split", "Something to Crow About" and "Future Perfect") has a rambling drunk guy hidden in it somewhere. Some are hidden; some are on your path.
285* SchizoTech: The late-game levels You Take The High Road and [[TitleDrop Future Perfect]] take place in the same 1924 period as Scotland The Brave, except the action moves to the underwater {{Steampunk}} city of Kronia, which produces advanced automatic weapons, colossal drilling machines, submarines, and ''fully autonomous combat robots'' which shoot out steam when you destroy them - not to mention the primitive ''time machine'' covered in old-timey pressure gauges and operated with levers. This is, of course, justified as the work of [[spoiler: Dr. Crow]], who used his time travel to bring knowledge of future technology back to the past.
286-->'''R-110:''' Look! A prehistoric robot! (...) These robots are ''not'' the pinnacle of technology. Still beats being human, though.
287* SkywardScream: When his summary of the elderly (and still oblivious) Dr. Crow's temporal scheming enables him to skip the exposition and flee into the timestream immediately when his younger self comes calling, a frustrated Cortez lets out a roar of "DAMMIT!!!" so loud that [[ReactionShot even Harry Tipper in 1969 can hear it]].
288* SherlockCanRead: At the end of the Scotland level, Cortez finds a photograph that ends up leading to the next level. [[MissionControl Anya]] rattles off a list of variables she can use to deduce the area...and he simply reads what's written on the back.
289* ShooOutTheClowns: This is the only game in which the goofy, {{Zeerust}}-fueled time period of 2280AD is completely absent, and of its native characters only Koozer Mox (a mere {{Mook}}) makes an appearance in multiplayer.
290* SnipingMission: Common, especially the occasional annoying EscortMission variety.
291* StableTimeLoop: There's a couple examples of the "ontological paradox" variety throughout the story:
292** The key Cortez uses to open a door in "Scotland the Brave" has no real origin. Cortez only receives it because another version of himself suddenly gives it to him. After later passing through a time portal, Cortez passes the key along to his own past self, who of course uses the key then passes it along to ''his'' past self, ad infinitum.
293** Similarly, in "U Genius, U-Genix", there's an extended sequence where Cortez works alongside several duplicates of himself in order to solve a set of puzzles. Both computers in the room are locked behind passwords, helpfully provided by versions of Cortez emerging from a nearby time portal, and it quickly becomes apparent that the passwords have no source other than temporal shinanigans.
294** Jacob Crow's time device. The youngest Crow we meet is given the time device by an older version of himself, yet that same young Crow later travels forward to give a second time device to that same elderly Crow, [[TimeyWimeyBall who somehow has no knowledge of time travel despite his own life's history being changed by the earlier encounter]], and who seemingly just goes back in time to immediately give the extra time device to his younger self in the first place. Its implied that the young Crow reverse-engineered the time device to create the duplicate he hands to his older self, but that still means the time device's very design is a free-floating chicken-or-egg paradox, since Crow [[MyOwnGrampa created a copy of a copy he himself had created earlier, which will then go on to be the "original" time device he receives and copies in the first place]].
295* SubvertedCatchphrase: Just before leaving Jo-Beth Casey for U-Genix:
296-->'''Cortez:''' It's time to s- ''[{{beat}}]'' I gotta go.
297* TaxidermyTerror: The Deerhaunter, a taxidermied moose head on a monstrous undead body that sports blades for hands. In ''Mansion of Madness'' it appears as a miniboss, and you can unlock a smaller version of it as a multiplayer character.
298* ToiletHumor: A few levels have, instead of a drunken guard, a guard caught on the john. With all the crass humor that entails.
299-->'''Female Guard:''' "Oh ''God'', it's like giving birth!"
300* UncomfortableElevatorMoment: See {{Bathos}} above.
301* TheUnfought: Like the previous games, there characters that are not in the story mode and only appear in the multiplayer:
302** Doctor Peabody and Nurse Gulag are only seen on propaganda posters during ''The Russian Connection''. Their filenames both being "trainscientist" suggests they were intended to appear in the following level.
303** No Elite Henchmen appear in "Khallos Express", though this is justified as it's implied they all went with Crow through the portal at the end of the previous level.
304** Nurses Tourniquet and Sputum's absences in the mansion levels are Handwaved by a computer log claiming zombies "Ate all the nurses".
305** Neophytes Constance and Lucian can only seen on advertising screens in the distance in the first section ''Breaking and Entering''. Strangely enough, Constance's model is used for the SpoiledBrat in ''The Russian Connection''.
306** Envirosuit and Tin-Legs Tommy aren't in ''U-genius, U-Genix''. You'll also only ever fight Female Inceptors.
307** The black colored Insetick model is neither fought in ''Machine Wars'' nor in ''Something To Crow About''.
308** John Smith is fought plenty of times in the last few levels, but his brother Jim Smith is nowhere to be seen.
309** Warrant Officer Keely is seen stirring the mob of Time Assassins against the past Cortez at the end of "You take the high road", but is never fought afterwards.
310* {{Unwinnable}}: Toward the end of ''Something To Crow About'', you must use the Electrotool to power segments of a HardLight energy bridge. If you run out of Electrotool ammo halfway across, you'll be stranded on a divider between the segments with no way to go but [[BottomlessPit down, down, down]].
311* VoiceWithAnInternetConnection: Anya, through the Temporal Uplink.
312* WallOfWeapons: "Wow, this is such a guys' room!"
313* WhatTheHellPlayer: A few times. Using the research equipment on the mutants in ''U-Genius U-Genix'' and exposing the scientist to tests in ''What Lies Below'' are probably the two biggest examples. You can also shoot a monkey Khallos has locked in a jail cell. Anya will flip if you take a pause from stopping a [[NukeEm nuclear missile]] launching and igniting a war between the [=US=] and [=USSR=] (and by extension, stopping the [=TimeSplitters=])... to play a slot machine.
314* WritingAroundTrademarks: Evidently the people behind ''Film/TheMatrix'' didn't take kindly to the "Cascade" cheat, which replaces all the textures with binary code. The textures are grayscaled in the [=GameCube=] version presumably for this reason, but it seems that wasn't satisfactory, because the cheat was removed outright in the Xbox port.
315* YouAlreadyChangedThePast:
316** This is done at least once a time period with a minimum of a future Cortez and a past Cortez (and sometimes a few more Cortezes as well). The interesting part is you'll find your future self which will save you from some disaster while you simultaneously fulfill a certain situation, then you'll go back in time and commit the act the future self did to save you while a past version of yourself does the mindless task you did already at that point in time. Regardless, it seems Cortez has already traveled back into the past by the time his past self arrives.
317*** One of the earliest examples. You come to a door with no way in, effectively barring you from continuing. Before Cortez can get frustrated, he is greeted by ''himself''. Future Cortez hands him the key to open the door through a floor grate, and you continue. Later, you come across a portal and step inside. Now you're on the top floor and greet your past self, giving your past self the key, and moving on. As you can imagine, after these sequences are done there is a lot of moments similar to this where it occurs to you that [[StableTimeLoop this key was never found by you, it was given to you, so where did it come from?]].
318** This trope also applies to the villains: It turns out that the mysterious human enemies from the first level of the game were [[spoiler:time-travelling assassins dispatched by Crow from his fortress in the 1900s, during the last act of the game. Needless to say, it doesn't work out.]]
319** This is also subverted at the end. During the game Future Cortez and Past Cortez meet constantly, but then suddenly [[spoiler: when you fight Crow, Anya has you fight alongside yourself. This wouldn't be weird if A) you are future Cortez and you never play as Past Cortez in this fight. B) after finishing the fight you go back to the future and the [=TimeSplitters=] are destroyed. C) The world suddenly becomes lush and green.]] This effectively means that time travel does not have to be a case of "You Already Changed the Past" and more or less a choice of whether you already have or if you're going to screw the rules.
320[[/folder]]
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322[[folder:''[=TimeSplitters=] Rewind'']]
323* VoodooShark: ''Rewind'' attempts to HandWave the "Cyberden" level [[IWantMyJetPack taking place in 2005]] by claiming that the cyborgs were time travelers sent by the Splitters to destroy humanity. This fails to explain how two cops from the future also got there. And it certainly can't explain "Planet X" and "Spaceways" allegedly being in 2020 and 2035, respectively. A better solution would have been to retcon the dates (like [=TS2=] ''already did'' regarding Chastity Detroit) or ditch them entirely.
324[[/folder]]
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