While everyone who has seen EA’s GoldenEye 2 has been crying foul over the use of the name, the team behind the original has been busy with TimeSplitters 3. The demo in Nintendo’s booth featured a brief level, and from the looks of it, it will be just as big of a hit as number 2.

The level was a train speeding down some tracks, as a bad excuse for a James Bond villain (complete with white kitty-cat) starts the countdown to launch a missile. You take the control of Cortez, but you’ll also fight along side the ever-popular Harry Tipper. He’ll occasionally help you out throughout the level by dispatching of bad guys, which probably means that there may be a greater emphasis on teamwork in the rest of the game as well.

A neat gameplay mechanic was shown in the demo level. As you made your way through the train, a helicopter appeared. On the train on the set of tracks next to you, you’ll see your future self launching rockets at it. It’s your job to keep him alive by shooting the enemies that appear above him. Later on in the level, after passing through a time distortion, you’ll come to the same spot on the other train, this time seeing your past self shooting the at enemies that appear above you, keeping you alive to blast the helicopter out of the sky. It’s a neat idea, and it has a lot of potential to make for some interesting levels that take advantage of the time travel and time paradox concept that the demo showed off.

Other than the concepts previewed in the game, nothing else has really changed from TS2. The graphical style is pretty much the same, though the train speeding along the train tracks looked pretty good. Also, the control scheme is virtually identical than what it was in the last game as well. This also means that trying to aim precisely is almost impossible, because the annoyance of the ultra-sensitive aiming cursor is still there. You’ll probably rarely use it, though, so thankfully the control was pretty solid to begin with.

As long as the features from TS2 are improved upon and expanded on in Future Perfect, there shouldn’t be any reason why this game won’t turn out just as good or better. Multiplayer wasn’t available, but it’s a pretty safe bet that it will also be just as good or better than TS2. That’s a good thing.