By Christian Van Meurs on April 19th, 2005

Future Perfect is an identity crisis of epic proportions. The main character Cortez brings to mind the utter horrors that might occur if the makers of Riddick were to write a cheesy Saturday morning cartoon, then for whatever reason decide to leave in the gore and violence of a typical R-rated action movie and call it good. Add to the mix some of the lamest dialogue ever to grace the gaming screen and some incredibly campy characters and you might start to understand what to expect. The main character’s catchphrase line, "Time to Split", soon reminds of nails on chalkboard, and his fruity overly-excited animations and bad lip syncing don’t help to make him the least bit cool.

If Future Perfect were a cake recipe, it’d read something like this: 2 cups Goldeneye; 1 cup recycled graphics engine; 1 cup outdated gameplay; 2 eggs; 1 tbsp. bad level design; 1 tsp Bill and Ted; 1 tsp Terminator. Half bake for however long EA gives you to develop it and serve without a second thought. There’s not a single shred of originality to be found in this game, so little in fact that "time paradoxes" (the ability to jump through wormholes and ally with your own past/future selves) are touted on the back of the box as some kind of a feature. From the opening cinematic to the end of the 12-page black and white joke of an instruction manual (of which 6 are table of contents, credits and other legal junk), gamers are greeted with the familiar "You’ll buy anything we sell and you’ll like it" hospitality that our beloved EA’s become so famous for, and no amount of polygonal g-strings and bouncing breasts are going to remedy this, try as they might.

For a genre that by definition is as immersive as games can get (first person), Future Perfect simply does not get the job done. The graphics are so eye-bleedingly bad that I simply cannot describe their ugliness.

Controlling this game feels as laborious as remaining interested long enough to do it. Weapon zoom functions are mapped to the L2 button as opposed to clicking in your sight-stick, while crouching is accomplished via a toggle of the Square button and not a quick press of the other stick like I’d expect (haven’t console FPS developers learned anything in 10 years?). Jumping, sadly, is not an option in Future Perfect, which is not only a shame considering there might have been some kind of fun to be found in exploring the vast squares and rectangles that is the Timesplitters world, but considering the Circle button isn’t even assigned to do anything at all, well, yeah. The dual-shock doesn’t do this game any favors either. There’s good news though, you can manually assign the buttons to do whatever you wish, except of course jumping.

If there was any silver lining to be found on this black cloud of a game, it’s the map maker. Or it would be I should say if not for the fact that it’s the most bare-bones map maker I’ve ever used. But hey, at least you’re given the option of making a level worth playing – not online though, which is a shame. Other game modes include various challenge modes and of course a multiplayer mode including *shock* deathmatch, team deathmatch and something new called "capture the flag". Hmm, could be fun. Players can choose from any of 150 unlockable characters to battle it out with, and online multiplayer is also optional should you decide to register to EA’s service. It’s a hassle, but if you’re stuck with this game, online is at least more entertaining than the semi-fun bots.

At the end of the day Future Perfect leaves me with an overwhelming desire to go back in time and stop my past self from ever playing this game. It’s as bland as bland can bland, a painfully average FPS swimming in a sea of better alternatives.