Name: Timeshift
Genre: First Person Shooter
Platform: PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (Reviewed)

The past few months have seen a veritable torrent of high-profile releases, especially in the already overcrowded genre of the First Person Shooter.  With established blockbuster FPS titles like Halo 3, the Orange Box and (most recently) Call of Duty 4 already selling impressively, it is no surprise that many smaller, less publicized FPS games are finding it difficult to stay afloat.

Unfortunately, Timeshift is one of these games.

The basic premise of Timeshift essentially revolves around two powerful suits, conveniently named Alpha Suit and Beta Suit, which allow its users to manipulate the flow of time.  At the start of the game, a brief cutscene reveals that the highly experimental Alpha Suit has been commandeered by its crazed inventor, the diabolical Dr. Krone, who is using the suit to take over the modern world via systematically altering the course of history. Thus, it is up to the player to adorn the remaining Beta Suit and follow Dr. Krone through time to prevent his evil plans from coming to fruition.

Sadly, this scenario sounds a whole lot more interesting than it is to actually play.  This is largely due to the fact that that much, not all, of the game seems to tread on extremely familiar ground.  In fact, almost every aspect of Timeshift’s controls, mechanics and plot have been lifted from other bigger-named titles; namely from the Halo, Max Payne and Half Life franchises, respectively. 

Today's Forecast: 99% chance of rain with scattered paradoxes.
 

This being said, the only mechanical aspect which makes the game relatively unique from the sea of other FPS titles is that Timeshift allows the player to, well… shift time.  Granted, while having the ability to manipulate the flow of time in almost any way is an immensely entertaining and interesting concept, it is far from original.  The celebrated Max Payne series first coined this ability “bullet-time” and in Timeshift, it is largely executed in the same way.  By pressing the Left Button, players bring up a time shifting menu, where the 360’s face buttons coordinate with each of the various time functions: slow, pause and rewind.  These commands are relatively easy to execute, which is good because the player will rarely engage in a firefight which does not require the use of the Beta Suit’s time-warping powers.

Obviously, the ability to manipulate time and space in the middle of a firefight can give the player quite an unfair advantage over the opposition.  As compensation, Timeshift has limited the duration that a player can use these powers to a short period of time.  Again, like Max Payne, the duration of “bullet time” is indicated by a meter which refills faster the more enemies the player defeats.  So, players who are eager to run through the entire game in slow-motion will be forced to use these aforementioned powers in conservative spurts.

Unknowingly stepped into a room teeming with irritable baddies?  Slow time while strafe-shooting around the room’s perimeter to quickly turn the tables.  At the receiving end of an enemy’s RPG?  Pause time and run to cover to get a better, safer vantage point.  Haphazardly step in front of a helicopter making a strafing run?  Rewind time to reverse the damage that was done.

Initially, these mechanics prove to be quite fun and rewarding.  In fact, nothing in the entire game can top the feeling of pausing time to blast an enemy’s face at point blank range with a shotgun just to un-pause time and as watch said enemy hilariously topples head over heels into a group of his bewildered comrades.

Pausing the flow of time can really help in a tight spot. 
 

However, as Timeshift progresses, this mechanic becomes tired, over-used and unfinished.  Like Half Life 2, the game features a few time and/or physics puzzles that require the suit’s time morphing abilities in order to be solved,  such as pausing time to run across electrified water, for example.  Players can expect these puzzles to be extremely easy but more of an annoyance than a creative change of the game’s pace; as they are rather pointless and detract from the game’s main strength: shooting stuff.

After the Half Life-esque singleplayer campaign has run its course, assuming that players manage to stay interested for the 10-12 hours it takes to complete, Timeshift offers a very unique and genuinely fun multiplayer experience.  More akin to so-called “twitch shooters” like Unreal and Quake, the arena-styled multiplayer modes of Timeshift offer furious and frenzied combat.  Instead of giving players full access to the time-warping mechanics seen in the singleplayer game however, multiplayer matches introduce “chrono grenades” which slow time for any player unlucky enough to find themselves within the radius of the grenade’s explosion.

Obviously, this mechanic adds an interesting flavor to the typical deathmatch, team deathmatch and capture the flag games, but Timeshift also includes some truly unique game modes.  For example, in one mode, players can only score a kill if their target is within the radius of the aforementioned “chrono grenade,” which can lead to some legitimately hectic and exciting multiplayer moments.

Graphically, Timeshift is a mixed bag.  Originally slated for an original Xbox and Xbox 360 release way back in the Spring of 2006, Timeshift was delayed for over a year and a half, apparently so that developer Saber Interactive and publisher Seirra could spend more time with the then new Unreal 3 engine and perfect the game’s distinctive mechanics.  Unfortunately, the game’s unusually long production time shows in spades, as there is a very noticeable graphical inequality to Timeshift which harkens back to the game in its primordial, “last-gen” state.

On one hand, the rain, water, particle and environmental effects are fantastically done and uniquely applied.  Pausing time in a rainstorm, for example, allows the player to gawk at every single meticulously rendered rain droplet as it hangs motionless in the air.  Other graphical aspects, like texturing, are also handled well in Timeshift.  The game excellently uses the Unreal 3 engine to put a strong emphasis on the visual detail that went into the various environmental effects, assumedly since much of the environmental flare is expected to hold its ground in both slowed and stopped time.

Rain good.  NPCs bad.

 

On the other hand, the character models look in Timeshift look blocky, unrealistic, and at times, downright awful.  In a game that clearly spends so much time on establishing realistic effects, it is puzzling to see how truly unrealistic and rather goofy each NPC looks.  While other games that utilize the Unreal 3 engine, such as Gears of War, do not exactly have the most realistic and anatomically correct character models, Timeshift’s characters look jarringly cartoonish and will most likely pull most players out of the experience, as it detracts from the overall presentation of the game.  Given the games exceptionally long production time, it makes one wonder why certain aspects of the game were seemingly neglected while other aspects were completely re-vamped and updated.

All in all, Timeshift is a victim of circumstance in an overpopulated genre.  There is some amount of unique and worthwhile experiences to be had in the game, especially in terms of the time-morphing and multiplayer modes, but the game still feels unfinished and decidedly “last-gen” in many respects.  Simply put, Timeshift is a mediocre game which offers nothing that is not already offered from much bigger and better titles.  It “borrows” too heavily from its predecessors and, as a result, cannot hold its own against the slew of new (and decidedly better) first person shooters.

Still, for the FPS junkie, Timeshift does offer some unique experiences and entertaining gameplay mechanics, but even these aspects feel played-out and shallow.  Especially considering that Timeshift has come out in the wake of high-ranking games like Halo 3, the Orange Box and Call of Duty 4, it would not be unreasonable to say that if Saber Interactive and Sierra had released the game closer to its original intended release date, perhaps Timeshift would have been able to pause its fifteen minutes of fame a bit longer.