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The gameplay is basic, and it doesn’t really get interesting until a little over half way through, and by then you probably would have either returned the game to Blockbusters, or found it more entertaining to save the world from aliens or terrorist. There are some boss battles, such as fighting a mech, and then a giant moving spider-like fort that houses the antagonist of the game, but neither are to compelling, and the latter is actually a bit frustrating. There is little sense of accomplishment as you progress, levels just seem to end at no real point on many occasions and there is a strange disconnect that you have between gameplay and loadtimes. Also during the load times the little bit of story the game has is progressed with FMV cutscenes right before the load, but they typically add up to flashbacks that don’t add to anything at all.
With a subpar campaign experience that is forgettable and feels like it is drawn out forever, the multiplayer is the only other reason to pick up TimeShift, and on paper it works out perfectly, but in practice it is incredibly flawed. The concept of time is a tricky one when considering connections, and the fact that all of it is within a real-time space with others. You have your deathmatch, territories, and capture the flag modes, and the inclusion of time adds another layer. In order to use time in multiplayer, your meter must be filled up enough to use the appropriate power, and you throw grenades that will create a time bubble, so if you get stuck in one, time will top, go forward, or backward. You can also disable the time affects when they happen to you if you have enough power built up. So for example, if a rocket was coming at you but you had a rewind grenade thrown in it’s path, the rocket would deflect back at the player. If you stop a player in there tracks with a time stop grenade, you shoot a few bullets at them, and when the affects of the grenade wears off, they get a face full of lead. If they are stuck in a fast-forward grenade, time doesn’t go faster for them, but rather slows them down (so that you are going faster but still moving at normal speeds.
a subpar campaign experience that is forgettable, the multiplayer is the only other reason to pick up TimeShift, and on paper it works out perfectly, but in practice it is incredibly flawed. "
The maps are all based off of locations in the game as well, with one being outside in a snow covered area with a sniper tower, underground tunnels and a fort, with another being a more industrialized area with a giant wind tunnel that can propel you to the various sections of the level. It all sounds great, but the strange speed they have it at, along with network problems make it a horrible experience. By default, you move much faster than you do in the single-player portion of the game, and it is so hard to aim that there is even an achievement associated with getting headshots. Most of the weapons that take precision are largely useless unless you catch people in time, and while the fact that the developers want you to trap people in time to shoot them is understood, the faster than Unreal Tournament speed is still annoying. That doesn’t help that it is hard to find a game, and when you do, typically no matter what your connection speed may be there is quite a bit of lag.
Visually, the game just feels like it did the minimum to be considered next-gen, and probably would have been more impressive back in 2006. The way it shows you are hurt, by making the screen incredibly blurry and dizzying is interesting, and blood splatters, rain drops on the screen as if though it was on the protagonist’s visor is a nice touch. Also while the areas are varied in their design from section to section, it still all becomes very meshed together in a kind of grey feel. The creators of the game said they spent so much time on the game because the original product wouldn’t survive in a “post Unreal Engine 3” world (the engine that powers games such as Gears of War and Bioshock) but sadly it still doesn’t. The sound effects in the game are pretty decent, but they become over-powering, muddling out the voices and the forgettable soundtrack much of the time.
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TimeShift is unfortunate, as it shines every so often, and had the potential to represent the FPS genre, but it feels like nothing more than your average shooter with a time gimmick in the end, and is incredibly hard to recommend when you have stellar shooters such as The Orange Box, Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, and Halo 3 to choose from instead. If you are a hardcore FPS fan getting tired of the usual suspects and want to rack up some gamerpoints, TimeShift is worth a rent at best.
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