I don’t like first person shooters on consoles. First of all, it doesn’t feel natural, actually you feel like controlling a plane of some sort instead of a character on two legs. The aiming is a pain and I quickly end up shooting the ceilings instead of anything else.

A mouse is more direct, where you just point to wherever you want to shoot. I know a joystick is analog, but the movement of a hand to a certain position on a desk is more accurate than any joystick movement.

Response with a mouse is much quicker as well. Although many people say it takes getting used to, I have yet to find a way to turn around with my character as fast as I can with a mouse, which is instantly. A joystick limits you to the maximum speed of pushing it completely down. A mouse is limited by how fast your hand moves around.

But I wasn’t planning on complaining how bad first person shooters are on consoles, I actually wanted to praise one. The first decent and probably still one of the best FPS on console, was Goldeneye on Nintendo 64. Anything after that failed miserably, until I got my hands on Timesplitters 2. Moving around was doable and since the enemy characters don’t really move very fast and don’t quickly draw their weapons like a PC FPS, you have a chance in aiming and winning the game. Cooperative mode was great fun and multiplayer was good except for the small screens you end up with.

And then there was Timesplitters Future Perfect, the third iteration of this crazy cartoon-like FPS with a twist. And this time they are bringing it online. There’s an immense amount of game types, including Death Match, Team Death Match, Shrink, Vampire etc. Every type of game is highly configurable and you can even create and share your own maps. Plus you can go online with up to four players, split screen, on one console and with a USB headset you can yell at the bastards that won’t leave you alone with his rocket launcher.

The rest of the game is funny as hell. Although my favourite gun remains the dual barrel shotgun, I get the most joy out of the injection gun, which blows your opponents up like balloons until they explode. There’s a stuffed cat racing game and Timeplitters 2’s excellent challenge, killing off zombies, returned in a more terrifying and nerve wrecking remake. Something to do with monkeys and dead cows. Scary, just the way we like it.

In my opinion, it’s the best FPS available for console, and although the game offers plenty of modes and challenges to keep you busy offline, it’s online where the game shines. Look for me in the Disco death matches if you plan to join the online slaughter.