I used to hate shooters. Was very bad at them and dreaded playing them in those gaming sessions I sometimes have with my friends. This was until a few weeks? Months? A short time ago, anyway, when I went to PC Arena (small place in town, 20 computers, LAN + many games) when I played Unreal Tournemant 2004. Loved it! Frantic as anything, crawling spider mines, wierd green goo guns...brilliant! So fast, too!

I decided then and there that I had to find the time to play a few more shooters. I borrowed my friend's copy of Timesplitters 2 and played that for a bit, enjoying it immensely. It didn't really compare with Timesplitters: Future Perfect (will be abbreviated to TS3), but fun it was!

I have a friend who's a complete Xbox fanatic. He loves everything Microsoft and probably hero-worships Bill Gates. Having spoken with him lots, I must agree that the 360 at least is an excellent console and, now that its past some initial problems, has managed to do the majority of things right. Now, this friend is predominantly into Halo, as well as other games like Call of Duty, Bioshock and Gears of War. He's despairing somewhat at my choice of Timesplitters as an introduction to the FPS (First Person Shooter) genre.

Well too bad! I picked up TS3 a few days ago, and have yet to regret it. It's manic, mad and insane. Yeah, I know. Mad and insane basically mean the same thing, but I thought it was a point worth mentioning twice. It is a bit strange running around as a monkey or a dinosaur or an undead priest with a shotgun, flare guns, a harpoon gun or whatever else. But that's why I love it! Anyone who's met me would struggle to describe me as sane, so a bit of wierdness is right down my street.

I've no idea what the game's story is. I think it involved travelling through various time periods fighting alien things (as well as zombies and who knows what else). I've spent all my time in the Arcade. This suits me fine! There are so many different modes. There's the standard Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag Bag. Then there's Shrink, where I believe your size is dependant on your position, Virus where you're set on fire when you respawn (or if you touch someone who's on fire) and Monkey Assisstant! Whoever's in last place gets a horde of monkeys who go around shooting everyone - mostly (or maybe exclusively) the person in first place. What's not to like!?

Like most of the games I play, it's best played with other people. Being a Gamecube player, this is hardly surprising with titles like Super Smash Bros. Melee and Mario Kart at the forefront. Making a sudden dash for the opponent's bag while your friends attempt to cover you is great fun - and then the desperate flight back to your own base when your friends have been shot is the height of franticness (is that a word? Must check). Brilliant!

It's worth it simply for the sheer range of weapons and characters. Shotguns, rockets, machine guns, pistols, plasma rifles, electrotools, injectors (causes people's heads to explode), baseball bats...such variety! My favourites have to be firstly the SPB - a powerful machine gun that really can rip through opponents - Tactical 12 Gauge - a powerful shotgun that's incredibly fun to behead people with - and the K-SMG (x2) - two sub-machine guns that reload very quickly! The carnage these weapons can inflict is simply beautiful. I detest rockets, though. Can't shoot them for the life of me, and I just get shot when trying to use heatseakers.

No, running around decapitating people in video games does not inspire me to be violent in real life. If anything, it does the opposite! Great stress relief, and incredibly useful to have if I'm angry or annoyed. I simply do not understand the people who say violent video games inspire people to be violent in real life. Anyone with even the vaguest notion of the differences between a virtual world and real life shouldn't have a problem there, and if they do...oh dear. I hardly think that's the video game's fault.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some monkeys to shoot.