FRD Extras > Free Radical Design - Letters > 2008 > September
Free Radical Entertainment
Could you guys include some of the original sound and music tracks from the first TimeSplitters into TimeSplitters 4. I really love the sounds of scrolling through and selecting options in the game's menus. The sound effects you guys at Free Radical Software came up with were so distinctive and memorable. The music was the same, if not more so. Nostalgia sells, you know... at least I think it does.
Anyways, I'm a big fan of Free Radical Enterprises, so keep it up.
Your pal,
-Tim.
PS TP4 for Wii please. Otherwise I won't be able to play it. D:
Could you guys include some of the original sound and music tracks from the first TimeSplitters into TimeSplitters 4. I really love the sounds of scrolling through and selecting options in the game's menus. The sound effects you guys at Free Radical Software came up with were so distinctive and memorable. The music was the same, if not more so. Nostalgia sells, you know... at least I think it does.
Anyways, I'm a big fan of Free Radical Enterprises, so keep it up.
Your pal,
-Tim.
PS TP4 for Wii please. Otherwise I won't be able to play it. D:
R107 SaysNice idea. Consider it stolen.
Hi!
I really want to thank you for the excellent add-on for HAZE. I love the new maps. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! THANK YOU! I just hope that developing the new maps did not take time away from the development of TS 4 for the Dreamcast ;)
-TJ Lundell
I really want to thank you for the excellent add-on for HAZE. I love the new maps. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! THANK YOU! I just hope that developing the new maps did not take time away from the development of TS 4 for the Dreamcast ;)
-TJ Lundell
R107 SaysGod bless you. And by the way, TimeSplitters 4 is going to be a Sega Saturn exclusive. Or possibly the Neo-Geo.
Dear Free Rad,
I read a article on cvg and was just wondering whats your take on games degrees??
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=195956&site=cvg
I myself am doing a games degree in carlow,Ireland and just want to know do look at whats happening in the college scene or would you support games courses??etc . .. . . .
thanks for your time
P.S. cant wait for TS4 . .. . . and TS2HD thatl b class
-Brian
I read a article on cvg and was just wondering whats your take on games degrees??
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=195956&site=cvg
I myself am doing a games degree in carlow,Ireland and just want to know do look at whats happening in the college scene or would you support games courses??etc . .. . . .
thanks for your time
P.S. cant wait for TS4 . .. . . and TS2HD thatl b class
-Brian
R107 SaysGames degrees are much better than tey used to be. But it often boils down to whether you know how to use the relevant toolset, or whether your portfolio has good looking stuff in it. I myself did a totally unrelated degree, but was doing relevant stuff in my spare time. So whilst there is sometimes a route through a degree, it's not necessarily the only route.
Also, you are gay.
Also, you are gay.
Dear Free Rad,
I keep saying it again and again, but if you look at what Psi ops or Second Sight did last gen and looking at what Elebits did on Wii you should be seeing this physics based object manipulation in virtually all FPS or 3rd person wii games. Force unleashed and Harry potter 5 omitting IR and physics based gameplay is raw stupidness.
It's like no developer has even heard or played Elebits and seen what it's technologically doing. Has anyone at FRadical played this game and if so, has no one been inspired by its design?
That's what annoys me so much, a launch game with an obvious mechanic that can yield so much potential is being completely ignored. Only Boom Blox uses similar mechanics. It can be incorporated into so many regular hardcore games though and not just puzzle games. Psi Ops and to a lesser extent, Second Sight are blatant proof of concept too.
But basically virtually any game can use the physics manipulation of Elebits. You have a controller that gives you acceleration info, positional info, allows you to rotate or throw objects with your own heft, has you using actual depth to pull and push things into and out of the screen. It gives you an absurd amount of control when coupled with a physics engine.
Take that mechanic, give your character in an action game some superpower and have him throw stuff around. In a Resident evil game you could pick up crates and hurl them at zombies. Or pluck off a zombies head.
In Star Wars Force unleashed you could ping pong storm troopers off eachother, or solve environmental puzzles. In a first person game you could investigate a scene by picking apart its components. Actually in a resident evil game, actually sifting through the contents of a mansion in the first person would be much more fun than walking towards a glowing file and pressing a button.
So why is Elebits and its game mechanics so special?
It really has a very rewarding, eye opening revolutionary control mechanic. It feels like direct interaction with the gameworld. Previously looking at footage I thought it could be approximated on PC, but after playing it, no. This could not be done on PC. It really uses the Wii controller as a 3-D mouse to give you really fine control over your enviroment and is completely beyond a dual stick controller. Once you've plucked through a couple of missions you find yourself doing really crazy things, zipping through levels, using complex interactions within the game world.
It actually uses the wii controller to sense depth so you will find yourself pulling and pushing items in and out of the screen, rotating objects and this isn't some random gesture control, it's fine tuned and accurate and very satisfying. You can actually fling items into the air and then catch them mid air in a delicious juggling act. I found myself lifting up a microwave, stacking it on boxes, flipping open the door, grabbing a pizza, feeding it into the box then turning it on, all the while zapping elebits at the same time. To put its control in some perspective, you can actually feed a CD into the slot of a disc shredder, in a 3-D space with no camera assistance, plane switching or automatic button pressing.
Once you get further into the game it becomes a lot more complex, items have to be used in order or activated through different ways like a puzzle, elebits become harder to find, your gun has to be powered up to lift heavier objects, you wrap your head around the power-ups which are really neat, either luring, shocking or deafening the little beasts, you have limitations like not causing noise (careful with those pot lids) and not breaking things (watch out for the vases) And of course rooting through the environment causing chaos never gets tired.
Almost everything in the environment can be manipulated with a fine degree of control, talk about design depth.
What's startling about Elebits is how it's game design in one fell swoop shows what a controller can offer to gameplay as opposed to the traditional view of what other hardware related performance upgrades can offer. Both approaches have benefits the other doesn't IMO. The makers of Psi-ops playing this game would have a field day with the mechanics, it makes the gravity gun in Half Life 2 look like a blunt instrument.
So please FR, give Wii some consideration as a machine that can technologically push games forward.
-GG
I keep saying it again and again, but if you look at what Psi ops or Second Sight did last gen and looking at what Elebits did on Wii you should be seeing this physics based object manipulation in virtually all FPS or 3rd person wii games. Force unleashed and Harry potter 5 omitting IR and physics based gameplay is raw stupidness.
It's like no developer has even heard or played Elebits and seen what it's technologically doing. Has anyone at FRadical played this game and if so, has no one been inspired by its design?
That's what annoys me so much, a launch game with an obvious mechanic that can yield so much potential is being completely ignored. Only Boom Blox uses similar mechanics. It can be incorporated into so many regular hardcore games though and not just puzzle games. Psi Ops and to a lesser extent, Second Sight are blatant proof of concept too.
But basically virtually any game can use the physics manipulation of Elebits. You have a controller that gives you acceleration info, positional info, allows you to rotate or throw objects with your own heft, has you using actual depth to pull and push things into and out of the screen. It gives you an absurd amount of control when coupled with a physics engine.
Take that mechanic, give your character in an action game some superpower and have him throw stuff around. In a Resident evil game you could pick up crates and hurl them at zombies. Or pluck off a zombies head.
In Star Wars Force unleashed you could ping pong storm troopers off eachother, or solve environmental puzzles. In a first person game you could investigate a scene by picking apart its components. Actually in a resident evil game, actually sifting through the contents of a mansion in the first person would be much more fun than walking towards a glowing file and pressing a button.
So why is Elebits and its game mechanics so special?
It really has a very rewarding, eye opening revolutionary control mechanic. It feels like direct interaction with the gameworld. Previously looking at footage I thought it could be approximated on PC, but after playing it, no. This could not be done on PC. It really uses the Wii controller as a 3-D mouse to give you really fine control over your enviroment and is completely beyond a dual stick controller. Once you've plucked through a couple of missions you find yourself doing really crazy things, zipping through levels, using complex interactions within the game world.
It actually uses the wii controller to sense depth so you will find yourself pulling and pushing items in and out of the screen, rotating objects and this isn't some random gesture control, it's fine tuned and accurate and very satisfying. You can actually fling items into the air and then catch them mid air in a delicious juggling act. I found myself lifting up a microwave, stacking it on boxes, flipping open the door, grabbing a pizza, feeding it into the box then turning it on, all the while zapping elebits at the same time. To put its control in some perspective, you can actually feed a CD into the slot of a disc shredder, in a 3-D space with no camera assistance, plane switching or automatic button pressing.
Once you get further into the game it becomes a lot more complex, items have to be used in order or activated through different ways like a puzzle, elebits become harder to find, your gun has to be powered up to lift heavier objects, you wrap your head around the power-ups which are really neat, either luring, shocking or deafening the little beasts, you have limitations like not causing noise (careful with those pot lids) and not breaking things (watch out for the vases) And of course rooting through the environment causing chaos never gets tired.
Almost everything in the environment can be manipulated with a fine degree of control, talk about design depth.
What's startling about Elebits is how it's game design in one fell swoop shows what a controller can offer to gameplay as opposed to the traditional view of what other hardware related performance upgrades can offer. Both approaches have benefits the other doesn't IMO. The makers of Psi-ops playing this game would have a field day with the mechanics, it makes the gravity gun in Half Life 2 look like a blunt instrument.
So please FR, give Wii some consideration as a machine that can technologically push games forward.
-GG
R107 SaysYeah, but is Cortez in it?
R107 SaysBrother, if it was within our power, it would be so. Sadly, we have no say in it.
R107 SaysWe're working on it... All we need now is for Sony to say Yes. Email them!
Dear Free Rad,
Ok, today i was thinking, what is timesplitters image like, all about. And i figured, its the fact that the game is actually mental. Its like the super smash brothers of fps, but with a better sense of humour and without cutey characters. I think you need to focus on keeping it insane and being totally CUSTOMISABLE and fun, just like super smash. I think you should have levels with moving backdrops for multiplayer, like super smash. Heres an example, do a level with a jet plane plummeting through the sky, so your shooting at people and all the time you can see out the windows your falling. Just makes it more exciting. Yeh.. sorry, just, the idea came to me today.
Thankyou, ps, make timesplitters sweet.
-Joe
Ok, today i was thinking, what is timesplitters image like, all about. And i figured, its the fact that the game is actually mental. Its like the super smash brothers of fps, but with a better sense of humour and without cutey characters. I think you need to focus on keeping it insane and being totally CUSTOMISABLE and fun, just like super smash. I think you should have levels with moving backdrops for multiplayer, like super smash. Heres an example, do a level with a jet plane plummeting through the sky, so your shooting at people and all the time you can see out the windows your falling. Just makes it more exciting. Yeh.. sorry, just, the idea came to me today.
Thankyou, ps, make timesplitters sweet.
-Joe
R107 SaysA crashing aeroplane. What a delightful omen.
Dear Free Rad,
Second sight was (is) the best story in video game i've ever played... then TS3. I am currently (amongst other things) running around as an italian plumber and a master chef but the chef has no sense of humour and the arbitor really needs to chill out... Anys ways my question; were the covenant grunts trained buy the TS monkeys, in some strange timeslip event, it would explain alot?
-Dean
Second sight was (is) the best story in video game i've ever played... then TS3. I am currently (amongst other things) running around as an italian plumber and a master chef but the chef has no sense of humour and the arbitor really needs to chill out... Anys ways my question; were the covenant grunts trained buy the TS monkeys, in some strange timeslip event, it would explain alot?
-Dean
R107 SaysI'm going to go ahead and say yes.
Dear Free Rad,
please please bring Robofish to Tmesplitters 4 and if possible make him a story character because Robofish kicks ass. Roofish for the win!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-R107 jr
please please bring Robofish to Tmesplitters 4 and if possible make him a story character because Robofish kicks ass. Roofish for the win!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-R107 jr
R107 SaysR107 Junior indeed.
Dear Free Rad,
THIS IS MY 3rd attempt at sending in a letter -_-
My message is simple is there any chance of TS4 coming out for PC?
-Jimmy
THIS IS MY 3rd attempt at sending in a letter -_-
My message is simple is there any chance of TS4 coming out for PC?
-Jimmy
R107 SaysSimply reply: no idea yet.
Dear Free Rad,
I have a story idea that solves any confusion with previous storylines. Involving the Reaper/Scourge/Beserker relationship and how killing Crow and the Timesplitters army did not prevent the war:
The Timesplitters could have been planning a war but couldn't create an army themselves because they were either lazy or didn't have the resources or time. They went to crow to help them making this army. In exchange for Crows genetic research and resources and therefore a Beserker army they gave him the key to immortality, the time crystals. Reaper DNA and the time crystals would also assist him in making the beserker timesplitters. With the beserker army, the timesplitters could then create the war.
However, with crow and the army destroyed, the Timesplitters had no viable human to help them create the Beserker army. Instead they will have to create an army themselves. They miss the deadline of less or same as 2401 so therefore there is no war in this period. Unfortunately for them, the timesplitters could not gather enough power to send the entire army including warships etc. back to an earlier time. Therefore the war will start a few good years later.
Either the Reapers or a new breed of selectively created timesplitters could replace the beserkers for TS4. It would be nice to include the reaper and scourge splitter in there somehow. Perhaps with levels in the commanding mother-ships or the timesplitter's homeland? The Reapers and Scourges are at a higher military position and exist in these areas as like in TS2.
-Matt
I have a story idea that solves any confusion with previous storylines. Involving the Reaper/Scourge/Beserker relationship and how killing Crow and the Timesplitters army did not prevent the war:
The Timesplitters could have been planning a war but couldn't create an army themselves because they were either lazy or didn't have the resources or time. They went to crow to help them making this army. In exchange for Crows genetic research and resources and therefore a Beserker army they gave him the key to immortality, the time crystals. Reaper DNA and the time crystals would also assist him in making the beserker timesplitters. With the beserker army, the timesplitters could then create the war.
However, with crow and the army destroyed, the Timesplitters had no viable human to help them create the Beserker army. Instead they will have to create an army themselves. They miss the deadline of less or same as 2401 so therefore there is no war in this period. Unfortunately for them, the timesplitters could not gather enough power to send the entire army including warships etc. back to an earlier time. Therefore the war will start a few good years later.
Either the Reapers or a new breed of selectively created timesplitters could replace the beserkers for TS4. It would be nice to include the reaper and scourge splitter in there somehow. Perhaps with levels in the commanding mother-ships or the timesplitter's homeland? The Reapers and Scourges are at a higher military position and exist in these areas as like in TS2.
-Matt
R107 SaysTo be honest, I reckon we'll just make up a host of new gibberish.
Dear Free Rad,
Recently I heard a rumor about a re-release of Timesplitters 2 HD for Xbox Live arcade or PSN. Is there possibly any truth is this matter? That would be awesome. I would buy it.
-Brad
Recently I heard a rumor about a re-release of Timesplitters 2 HD for Xbox Live arcade or PSN. Is there possibly any truth is this matter? That would be awesome. I would buy it.
-Brad
R107 SaysIt's possible – but only if you people rally together and demand it!
R107 SaysOn the GAME consoles? Yes.
Dear Free Rad,
Why is it that most of Future Perfects song's have the same (or similar, at least) melody interlude kind of thing? Is it some kind of joke Graeme Norgate pulled on everyone, to include that in almost every song?
-Matt
Why is it that most of Future Perfects song's have the same (or similar, at least) melody interlude kind of thing? Is it some kind of joke Graeme Norgate pulled on everyone, to include that in almost every song?
-Matt
R107 SaysSheer bastard laziness. End of story.
