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TimeShift
TimeShift pushes first-person shooters into the fourth dimension.
November 5, 2007 | 4:19 PM PSTby: A. McDaniel
AMN's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews. This review is based off the Xbox 360 version of this game.
What the Game's About
In TimeShift, players take control of a scientist with a dark past, brought in to work on a project involving time manipulation. The project creates two suits designed to alter time: the alpha suit and the beta suit. The story opens up with the theft of the alpha suit and the subsequent destruction of the lab. Determined to change the future, you don the "work in progress" beta suit and set off your own time jump in pursuit of the alpha suit. Due to the prototype nature of the beta suit's abilities, your temporal displacement malfunctions and places you in an alternate reality where you join forces with the local rebellion against the totalitarian government.
The beta suit is controlled by a prototype artificial intelligence called the S.S.A.M. the suits AI gives you access to the standard FPS standbys: radar, communications, and health regeneration. Where the beta suit stands out, and what makes TimeShift special is in its ability to temporarily manipulate time. The beta suit gives you access to slowing, stopping and reversing time completely.
What's Hot
By allowing you to exploit time itself, TimeShift changes the standard FPS dynamics. TimeShift succeeds where so many games have failed when it comes to using the time mechanic. Since your abilities are deeply woven into the game, time manipulation never really feels like a pure gimmick. The AI is very aggressive and likes to swarm you, but with your time abilities, encounters feel fresh since there are multiple methods of dealing with each situation.
Whereas in a standard FPS the formula is simply: rush into an attack, take out as many enemies as possible, find cover while your health regenerates, rinse and repeat. In TimeShift, you can slow down time and take out your enfeebled attackers, or you can pause time while in the middle of a firefight, walk over and take the very guns out of their hands. If your enemies happen to attach a sticky grenade to you, you can reverse time and detach it. If you alert a guard to your presence, you can run past and reverse time, and he will be unaware that you were ever there. If you are fast enough you can pause time while rockets or grenades are in the air and you can shoot them mid-flight, or use the extra time to dodge them. With the different ways to approach each situation, TimeShift lends an almost puzzle-like aspect to the FPS genre. Taking what could very well have turned out to be monotonous combat, TimeShift adds a welcome element to the gun-fighting. Each time you die, instead of cursing or blaming the AI you will want to rethink how to better outsmart them using your abilities.
The game looks and plays wonderfully. The final graphics are a huge leap ahead of its initial previews. The developers took their time to really revamped the graphics engine, and the resultant visuals are very attractive. The rain effects throughout the game are excellent; it even trickles down your visor realistically. With time paused you can see each individual raindrop floating in midair, the chaos of a paused explosion, bullets ripping through the air, or watch electrical arcs frozen still.
The multiplayer aspects are well thought out as well. The standard multiplayer modes are augmented with various time shifting abilities. Most games remove time altering abilities within multiplayer, since it would normally require all players to stop or slow down no matter where they are located on a map. TimeShift however embraces it by using grenades with the ability to create time fields. Anything caught within the field of your grenade is susceptible. This makes for surprisingly fun matches. It's great fun catching your unlucky prey in a 'stop' field and take your time to line up a perfect headshot while they can't do anything but watch. All of the multiplayer standard modes are at your disposal, but the addition of the time grenades gives TimeShift a much needed change of pace. A minor difference actually gives life to multiplayer that would ordinarily be a pretty boring affair. Additionally, to round things out, the game features a system link option for those that have not forgotten the lost art of the LAN party.
What's Not
The game does a poor job of storytelling. At times you forget what your overall objective is, because you are having too much fun figuring out how to approach each encounter. You learn very little about whom you are, or any of the scientists that are shown in the game's opening scenes. The early flashbacks are nonsensical, and pop up at random moments. Due to the story, or lack thereof, there is no sense of motivation. You quickly just find yourself blindly following orders. You never get the sense that you need to save the world and set the timestream back to the way it was.
Next to the story, perhaps the worst thing about TimeShift is that you will find that the AI never adapts its tactics to your abilities. The same tricks that work on first level enemies will still work up until the endgame. As you gain more powerful weapons, the challenge slowly dissolves.
At times TimeShift seems like someone shoehorned two games together. The graphic's quality received a major upgrade; however the art direction did not. The facial textures look pretty bland. Your allies seem to be telepathic; as they communicate with you without opening their mouths. Enemy soldiers suffer from the standard, star wars clone syndrome, since there are only a few enemy models. Most of the vehicles and weaponry look like something a third grader designed during recess.
Adding to that, the level designer seemed to get bored at some point and just gave up. Prepare to see the exact same soda machines, panels and wall textures ad nauseam. The repeated scenery would not be so bad, but the waypoint system to your objectives on your radar doesn't do a good job of pathfinding for you. Except for the more linear levels, you will probably get lost a lot if you rely solely on your radar. There are some simple but great challenges that the time mechanics give way for. It brings new direction to the genre's favorite puzzles, like pausing time to walk over the electrified water, navigating the room of moving lasers, getting through the fast closing door, crumbling walkways, or passing through fiery passageways, but these facets are repeated too often and without enough variety.
Final Word
What Half-Life2 did for physics, TimeShift attempts to do with time. By and large, TimeShift succeeds where many have failed. A lot of TimeShift's innovative features have the potential to become the next big thing in FPS's. The poor storyline and art design hold TimeShift back from becoming something truly epic and great. Still, by force of will, TimeShift pulls itself slightly above the level of your average first-person shooter. While TimeShift may not be the next Half-Life2, fans of Far Cry and Timesplitter's gameplay, or those that are just interested in a slightly different take on the FPS genre may want to check out TimeShift.
What the Game's About
In TimeShift, players take control of a scientist with a dark past, brought in to work on a project involving time manipulation. The project creates two suits designed to alter time: the alpha suit and the beta suit. The story opens up with the theft of the alpha suit and the subsequent destruction of the lab. Determined to change the future, you don the "work in progress" beta suit and set off your own time jump in pursuit of the alpha suit. Due to the prototype nature of the beta suit's abilities, your temporal displacement malfunctions and places you in an alternate reality where you join forces with the local rebellion against the totalitarian government.
The beta suit is controlled by a prototype artificial intelligence called the S.S.A.M. the suits AI gives you access to the standard FPS standbys: radar, communications, and health regeneration. Where the beta suit stands out, and what makes TimeShift special is in its ability to temporarily manipulate time. The beta suit gives you access to slowing, stopping and reversing time completely.
What's Hot
By allowing you to exploit time itself, TimeShift changes the standard FPS dynamics. TimeShift succeeds where so many games have failed when it comes to using the time mechanic. Since your abilities are deeply woven into the game, time manipulation never really feels like a pure gimmick. The AI is very aggressive and likes to swarm you, but with your time abilities, encounters feel fresh since there are multiple methods of dealing with each situation.
Whereas in a standard FPS the formula is simply: rush into an attack, take out as many enemies as possible, find cover while your health regenerates, rinse and repeat. In TimeShift, you can slow down time and take out your enfeebled attackers, or you can pause time while in the middle of a firefight, walk over and take the very guns out of their hands. If your enemies happen to attach a sticky grenade to you, you can reverse time and detach it. If you alert a guard to your presence, you can run past and reverse time, and he will be unaware that you were ever there. If you are fast enough you can pause time while rockets or grenades are in the air and you can shoot them mid-flight, or use the extra time to dodge them. With the different ways to approach each situation, TimeShift lends an almost puzzle-like aspect to the FPS genre. Taking what could very well have turned out to be monotonous combat, TimeShift adds a welcome element to the gun-fighting. Each time you die, instead of cursing or blaming the AI you will want to rethink how to better outsmart them using your abilities.
The game looks and plays wonderfully. The final graphics are a huge leap ahead of its initial previews. The developers took their time to really revamped the graphics engine, and the resultant visuals are very attractive. The rain effects throughout the game are excellent; it even trickles down your visor realistically. With time paused you can see each individual raindrop floating in midair, the chaos of a paused explosion, bullets ripping through the air, or watch electrical arcs frozen still.
The multiplayer aspects are well thought out as well. The standard multiplayer modes are augmented with various time shifting abilities. Most games remove time altering abilities within multiplayer, since it would normally require all players to stop or slow down no matter where they are located on a map. TimeShift however embraces it by using grenades with the ability to create time fields. Anything caught within the field of your grenade is susceptible. This makes for surprisingly fun matches. It's great fun catching your unlucky prey in a 'stop' field and take your time to line up a perfect headshot while they can't do anything but watch. All of the multiplayer standard modes are at your disposal, but the addition of the time grenades gives TimeShift a much needed change of pace. A minor difference actually gives life to multiplayer that would ordinarily be a pretty boring affair. Additionally, to round things out, the game features a system link option for those that have not forgotten the lost art of the LAN party.
What's Not
The game does a poor job of storytelling. At times you forget what your overall objective is, because you are having too much fun figuring out how to approach each encounter. You learn very little about whom you are, or any of the scientists that are shown in the game's opening scenes. The early flashbacks are nonsensical, and pop up at random moments. Due to the story, or lack thereof, there is no sense of motivation. You quickly just find yourself blindly following orders. You never get the sense that you need to save the world and set the timestream back to the way it was.
Next to the story, perhaps the worst thing about TimeShift is that you will find that the AI never adapts its tactics to your abilities. The same tricks that work on first level enemies will still work up until the endgame. As you gain more powerful weapons, the challenge slowly dissolves.
At times TimeShift seems like someone shoehorned two games together. The graphic's quality received a major upgrade; however the art direction did not. The facial textures look pretty bland. Your allies seem to be telepathic; as they communicate with you without opening their mouths. Enemy soldiers suffer from the standard, star wars clone syndrome, since there are only a few enemy models. Most of the vehicles and weaponry look like something a third grader designed during recess.
Adding to that, the level designer seemed to get bored at some point and just gave up. Prepare to see the exact same soda machines, panels and wall textures ad nauseam. The repeated scenery would not be so bad, but the waypoint system to your objectives on your radar doesn't do a good job of pathfinding for you. Except for the more linear levels, you will probably get lost a lot if you rely solely on your radar. There are some simple but great challenges that the time mechanics give way for. It brings new direction to the genre's favorite puzzles, like pausing time to walk over the electrified water, navigating the room of moving lasers, getting through the fast closing door, crumbling walkways, or passing through fiery passageways, but these facets are repeated too often and without enough variety.
Final Word
What Half-Life2 did for physics, TimeShift attempts to do with time. By and large, TimeShift succeeds where many have failed. A lot of TimeShift's innovative features have the potential to become the next big thing in FPS's. The poor storyline and art design hold TimeShift back from becoming something truly epic and great. Still, by force of will, TimeShift pulls itself slightly above the level of your average first-person shooter. While TimeShift may not be the next Half-Life2, fans of Far Cry and Timesplitter's gameplay, or those that are just interested in a slightly different take on the FPS genre may want to check out TimeShift.
November 20, 2009
