TimeShift Review

Timeshift is a well rounded package and offers a lengthy single player campaign and lots of hours over Xbox Live if multiplayer is your type of thing

At this time of year, as a lonely first person shooter out on the street all by yourself, you need to do something pretty radical to impress your peers and fit in. If you don’t you could be left like a child hopping up and down outside the huddle trying to get a look at whatever it is everyone is interested in. However, it might not be entirely your fault. You might just be in the wrong place at the wrong time and although you’re doing everything right, there always something more interesting going on that diverts everyone else’s attention. Before this analogy loses any kind of coherence and I make a fool of myself even further, the point I’m getting at is that Time Shift is that lonely, neglected, under-hyped first person shooter than has simply been forgotten about due to such games as Bioshock, Halo 3 and the even more recent Assassin’s Creed and Mass Effect. If however you did pick this up, you would’ve realised that Sierra’s latest venture is actually very good.

Run up to them and take their guns! Oh, pause time first though or you’ll get hurt!		See how the enemy uses cover to draw you out?

I usually start with a short plot resume but without wishing to colour the rest of the review the plot is one of the most difficult things in the game to get to grips with. All I could muster from it is that there is an Alpha Time Suit and a Beta Time Suit that enable you to manipulate time to your combat advantage whilst you search for the rogue head of a huge corporation who travels through time to alter things to his own advantage. That was the easily digestible version. What is important however is that the plot doesn’t really interfere with the rather excellent gameplay.

If any of you have played the rather excellent F.E.A.R. by Vivendi then Timeshift harbours very much the same style and feel but at the same time offering more interesting environments and the opportunity for more varied gameplay. For instance, now that you have the ability to pause, fast forward and rewind time it opens up many avenues for problem solving throughout the (rather overlong) levels. Does a door close before you can reach and thus block your path? Speed up time so that you can make it through the door before it closes. A broken gas pipe shooting hot flames thwarting your progress? Simply pause time a few seconds and walk on by. These are just a couple of basic examples of how the feature can be used and I must admit at times I got a little stuck for what to do and got that satisfactory smile on my face as I worked it out.

However, time manipulation really comes to the fore in combat. So many neat tweaks and touches have been added that I never got tired. For instance, pausing time and running around snatching the enemies’ guns out of their hands only for them to look around in amazement and cower as I put them out of their misery. Yes. I’m evil like that. One of my favourites was getting stuck with a cluster grenade (think Halo’s plasmas) and rewinding time so it’s become unstuck and then simply side-stepping it as time returned to normal. These features and many more keep each new stand off with the enemy both challenging and rewarding as you progress through the levels.

Do you pause time and try and take them on? Or do you speed it up and get the hell out of there?!		I think they’re in for a surprise, don’t you?

Where Timeshift really does emulate F.E.A.R. in a good way is the enemy AI. I was amazed at their determination and doggedness in their attempts to wipe me off the face of the earth. If I ducked for cover, they would flank and rush me. Their positional sense and their own ability to make use of the surroundings was excellent too, forcing me into making difficult choices of whether I should risk bombing across a wide-open space to take out my nearest threat or pop out of cover, use time pause and try and eliminate the gunner splaying my position with his turret gun. In short: interesting, intelligent combat.

Graphically it’s no Picasso and there is the slightest hint of tearing every now and then but nothing that really draws you too far away from the action. Still the graphics are functional and the draw distance is definitely something the team had focused on. However, the physics engine is rather good and destructible cover never gets boring and adds so much tension that you’ll start wishing every game did it. Standing behind a concrete pillar only to see it get stripped down to rusty mesh with fragments flying around really makes you grit you teeth as you’re playing.

Sound wise the game is best enjoyed in 5.1 (what isn’t these days?) although there’s no real soundtrack to speak of but what you do get is passable and certainly doesn’t grate like other titles I’ve played this year – gives Conan a shifty, sideways glance.

Don’t make him angry, you won’t like him when he’s angry!		The weapons are as varied as the gameplay is interesting

All in all Timeshift is a well rounded package and offers a lengthy single player campaign and lots of hours over Xbox Live if multiplayer is your type of thing. Sadly most of you will pick it up next spring when the next games drought is bestowed upon from those great publishers in the sky and by then it will probably have lost some of its initial impact. In fact, it already had as I played it. I’m sure if this was released a year ago everyone would be going crazy for it. But the fact that it’s had to follow Halo 3 and Bioshock and given its similarity and feel to that of F.E.A.R. this one was simply born too late. Sometimes however, not being down with the kids is a good thing, eh? Make your own minds up.