Character Profile: Sergeant Cortez (timesplitters series)

Hey everyone. Decided to do something a bit different by creating character profiles based on characters from one of my favorite game series of all time, Timesplitters! I've tried to add in a time travel element from the games but I may have made it way too complicated. anyway let me know what you guys think. Do you like it, do you think he needs more weapons and is the character even practical?



Sgt. Cortez

Biography
Saviour of the human race and the only surviving member of an elite time travelling space marine unit, Sgt. Cortez has fought a lot of crazy things in his lifetime: aliens, zombies, ghosts, robots and reanimated hunting trophies to name just a few. He’s travelled across time and space dealing with: 1920s crime bosses, 1960s maniacal megalomaniacs, 1990s Russian Special Forces and a troublesome time travelling geriatric. He’s even met multiple versions of himself in time loops, created a bootstrap paradox with his arch-nemesis (previously mentioned troublesome geriatric) and piloted a stuffed remote controlled cat on wheels. One thing, however that he was unprepared for was… Midara!

Cortez’s life had been on the up, having just saved the world from a race of aliens hell bent on erasing humanity from existence, and having got the girl, Cortez felt he may well soon be retiring for a life of well earned relaxation. Unfortunately messing with the time-space continuum had a price, and Cortez found himself catapulted into an alternate reality, with nothing but his equipment and an assortment of random weapons and objects he’d picked up on his adventures.

After coming to terms with his situation and his new life, Cortez is now a monster hunter for hire, using his combat experience to help out local towns and villages. Cortez has defeated many monsters but there’s one type he’s tried, and thus far succeeded, in avoiding and that’s Midara. He’s not good with women, especially flirty ones with the ability to reduce any man to a drooling, bumbling imbecile! On balance though he’d rather that than many of the other possible fates he could have suffered over his adventures.

Personality
From his appearance and combat skill you might think he’s a 24 caret certified badass. Unfortunately such impressions are undermined whenever he decides to open his mouth as, while he has the voice to play the part, his choice of words inevitably sabotages the image. He can’t come up with a good one-liner to save his life and his catchphrase “it’s time to split!” and “oh yeah I’m ready!” induces cringes in all who witness it.

Surprisingly friendly but socially awkward, Cortez isn’t always the strong and silent type, although sometimes he wishes he was. The one person he’s fine conversing with is himself (literally in some cases). Short on choice words and even shorter on patience, Cortez’s biggest weakness (apart from conversing with the opposite sex) is his habit charging into a situation without considering his options.

Equipment
Upon being catapulted to this alternate reality Cortez found himself still carrying much of his equipment from his adventures across time including:
1) Adaptive goggles – These allow him to see in the dark as well as revealing the locations of any proximity mines he throws (which are invisible to the naked eye)
2) Temporal Uplink – This strange looking gauntlet with three protruding spider like arms over the hand allows Cortez to telekinetically pick up objects from a distance or propel an object at high speed. The uplink also allows Cortez to potentially open up time portals (see time loop)

Time Loop
Every 5 turns the temporal uplink has a fifty, fifty chance (decided by coin toss, heads = portal, tails = no portal) of opening up a time portal at the end of that turn and a version of Cortez from the future (end of the following turn to be precise) appears. This means that for the next turn each version of Cortez can attack the opponent, while the opponent can only attack one of them. In order to seal the time loop at the end of that turn the original (present) Cortez must enter the portal sending them back to the end of the previous go, meaning the second version (future) continues the battle from there. If however the opponent manages to bind or in some other way prevent the original Cortez from reaching the portal, the future version of himself along with his actions will be erased from time.

Weapons/moves
Cortez has an assortment of weapons from across time but his prepared arsenal against Midara is:

Baseball bat (basic attack weapon) - A relic from one of his zombie fighting missions, Cortez, while by no means a martial arts expert, employees his tried and trusted method of either:
1) Swinging the bat at the opponents head (2 stamina damage)
2) Sweeping the opponents legs from under them (1 stamina damage + downed)

Temporal grenades (only carries 3 per battle) – These grenades, while not dealing any damage, can be very useful as they slow down any opponent caught in their blast radius. They do this by applying a localised time dilation effect to anyone or anything caught in the initial explosion. Any effected party will perceive the rest of the world as speeding up, while those unaffected will view effected targets as having slowed down. 1 second for those affected equals 10 seconds to the outside world and as a result affected targets cannot dodge meaning a guaranteed hit the following turn, with any weapon apart from the supercharged electrotool. The time dilation effect lasts for 2 turns unless an attack stuns or downs the target.

Proximity concussion mines (carries 6 per battle) – These mines, which having inbuilt cloaking technology, work by releasing a shockwave of compressed air when a target comes in range of their sensors (2 meter radius). The shockwave knocks the opponent off their feet and can temporarily disorientate them (2 stamina damage + downed).
It should be noted that Cortez can use the telekinetic ability of the temporal uplink to pick up any mines that missed the target or haven’t been detonated. There are a variety of options of how to use them:
1) Defensive formation – Cortez lays 3 proximity mines in a triangle shape around him and waits for the target to approach in the hopes they trigger one of the mines. The opponent can counter this by staying back and using ranged attacks to try and force Cortez out of the defensive zone.
2) Mine toss – Cortez attempts to throw a mine at his opponent.
3) Mine uplink throw – Cortez can pick up undetonated mines from the battlefield using the uplink and then fire them at the opponent.

Bricks (carries 5) – Mementos from a battle Cortez had, fighting a stone golem on a building site, bricks can be used as a back up ranged and can be thrown at the enemy (1 stamina damage). Used bricks can be picked up and reused by throwing them (1 stamina damage) or firing them using the temporal uplink (2 stamina damage).

Electrotool (2 shots, each takes 2 turns to recharge) – intended as a maintenance tool for robots, the electrotool can be used as a weapon firing out a beam of high voltage electricity. The electrotool has two fire modes:
1) Normal charge – The electrotool creates a solid beam of electricity that is held for the whole turn. (Uses 1 shot, applies 2 stamina damage)
2) Supercharge – The electrotool releases both charges along with some extra juice in the form of a highly unstable ball of electricity. Supercharged shots are incredibly powerful however, not only are they woefully inaccurate due to increased recoil but they cause the electrotool to overheat requiring the electrotool to recharge fully (4 turns) before it can be used again. (5 stamina damage + stunned)

The monkey gun ( one use per battle only) – Designed by super-intelligent cyber-monkeys (essentially 2 foot monkey versions of Robocop), the monkey gun is, potentially, the most powerful weapon in Cortez’s arsenal. Packing a 64 round magazine, of miniaturised bananas, the monkey gun drains all its ammo with a single pull of the trigger, spraying the battlefield. The gun is nigh on impossible to aim but, due to its ammo count, it’s guaranteed to hit the target at some point. (Stamina damage can vary from 1 to 6 stamina damage, decided by rolling a standard six sided dice)

Cortez was too good for this world.

Timesplitters 4 when?

Grrrrr! Don't mention the 4!

Do you know why Crytek Canceled Timesplitters 4? It wasn't as Crytek tried to claim "the series isn't popular enough". It was essentially because the publishing and marketing department felt that "The Timesplitters series doesn't have any characters memorable or iconic enough to use for the cover art and advertising". A much loved, albeit cult classic, FPS series with one of the most vibrant, varied and memorable rosters of characters out of all of gaming and they couldn't find a single character worthy of the box art!!! That was the ultimate reason why Crytek never picked up the series. It makes my blood boil!

There may be a little hope with the fan remaster project "Timesplitters Rewind" but I'm not going to hold my breath as its been in production for years and is apparently still far from finished.