The game runs always at 60fps; in more than twenty hours of single player and multiplayer gameplay I couldn't notice a single - I repeat, a single - slowdown, despite the good quality of the textures, the details displayed on the screen, and the impressive draw distances. Loading times occur only before a level, and they are always very brief.

All the 10 levels available in Story Mode look great. From the cathedral of Notre Dame to a robot factory, the architectures created and recreated for the game are particularly noticeable; thanks to a wise use of light sources, colors, and textures, each mission is really a world apart inspired by a particular cinematographic genre.

Besides, Free Radical Design created every level with an amazing attention to detail. The barrels in the Chicago level are probably my favorite example. When you hit them with one of your bullets, you'll see the whiskey squirting out of the hole. When the whiskey has stopped squirting out, if you make another hole above the first one nothing happens, but if you hit the lower part of the barrel, you'll see the remaining liquid squirting out of it. Shoot a glass and you'll see it crackling and breaking starting from the exact point in which you hit it; water, including puddles in the streets of Chicago, reflects in real-time the surroundings; lots of objects in the environment can be broken or destroyed - there are literally dozens of examples like these that one could make by looking carefully at all the environments in the game.

Character models and animations are equally surprising. There are more than one hundred different characters in the game, and Free Radical Design animated them with a care worth of a good cartoon; the few in-game cutscenes, also thanks to the great facial animations, are really enjoyable.

Free of any aliasing or clipping issue, constantly running at 60fps, TimeSplitters 2 is one of the best looking games on the system, and it surpasses in smoothness Halo's mighty engine.

In Story Mode, each level has its own main theme. While in the first TimeSplitters all the tunes were extremely forgettable - to not say cheap - this time the themes are actually perfect in setting the atmosphere of a level. The multiplayer levels have the usual, repetitive techno songs present in almost any first person shooter, but they are sufficient to decently support the action.

Sound effects - first of all, the powerful weapon noises - are excellent and voice acting during the few cutscenes is extremely enjoyable.

It's difficult to imagine a first person shooter with a better replay value than TimeSplitters 2. The 10 levels in the Story Mode are huge, and according to the selected difficulty setting, new areas become available. The Story Mode can be also played in a great co-op mode, and the Arcade League and Challenges modes add hours and hours of gameplay for the single player.

In Multiplayer, TimeSplitters 2 is a gem. The game offers 16 game types, 16 levels created for the multiplayer, and it supports up to 16 simultaneous players if you have the chance of creating a LAN of four Playstation 2 in your house. With the addition of the online support, TimeSplitters 2 would have probably been the most interesting opponent of Unreal Tournament 2003, the current king of online first person shooters.

TimeSplitters 2 hides an enormous amount of extra stuff that must be unlocked by completing the various modes in Single Player. With more than 100 playable characters, a variety of levels and game types that must be unlocked, and lots of cheats, TimeSplitters 2 can keep you glued to the monitor for a long time.

Last but not least, the included Map Maker makes of TimeSplitters 2 a virtually endless game for the creative player with the time, and patience, to learn at least the basics of this tool.