TimeShift is a perfect example of publishers pushing an unfinished game
onto the market in time for the holiday season. While the result is by
no means disastrous, there's no doubt the game could have been
significantly better.
The story goes that at some point in the future, a secret science
facility invents a suit that protects its wearer from the side-effects
of time travel, i.e. being squished into a singularity by gravitational
forces. Of course, one power-hungry jerk in your team can't resist
temptation and steals the suit to travel back in time to achieve world
domination but just before your reality collapses, you manage to get
into the second suit and follow him into the past in an attempt to stop
him. Or at least that's what happened if you want to believe the manual, the
actual plot barely figures into the game at all and without that back
story, you're basically oblivious as to who you are, where ore more importantly when you are and
why you are there. The complete lack of a story figuring into the game
is without a doubt its biggest problem as it kills any atmosphere the
developers try to create and what good is saving the world when you
couldn't care less if it was destroyed after all.
Gameplay-wise TimeShift closely follows the blue print laid out by the
Half-Life series, without ever achieving its excellence though. The
level design while utterly linear is quite diverse and sends you
through a variety of environments from war-torn, urban cities to
facility complexes and more open-ended, natural environments. To cover
ground faster in some of the wider areas, you'll be given a small buggy
as well, however it doesn't control quite as tightly as you'd want to.
What seemingly stands out about the game is that your fancy suit lets
you manipulate time at your will as long as its energy level is not
depleted and while games like Max Payne and F.E.A.R. certainly have
done this to death by now, TimeShift tries to mix it up with the
ability to not only slow down time but stop it completely or even
reverse it. In reality however, you'll use the latter two mostly for
some of the puzzles which mostly fall into the pattern of halting time
to press two switches at once or crossing a pathway of otherwise moving
platforms. The shooting doesn't feel that much different from other
games of this type as you'll quickly revert into a routine of finding
cover, slowing down time, popping up to take a few guys out and jumping
back into cover. This is especially true after you find the crossbow,
which kills every grunt enemy with only one shot and is easy to handle
thanks to your time-manipulating abilities.
That said, the actual gameplay is certainly fun, the enemy A.I. is
challenging enough (if you didn't have that crossbow that is) or at
least knows how to point a gun at you, and the level design, while
monotonous at times, is interesting overall. Again, the main problem is
the constant irritation the game creates by not giving you any
background as to why you're doing what you're doing, but it's possible
to look past these problems and treat TimeShift more like an old Quake
game.
The story campaign clocks in at a sizeable 9-12 hours to finish and
will leave people who managed to care about the underdeveloped and flat
characters with a bit of a cliffhanger, opening the possibility for a
sequel. Additionally, the game features multiplayer for up to 16
combatants with standard modes like deathmatch and capture the flag as
well as the unique meltdown madness in which players have to throw
chrono-grenades at the enemy team's machine to slow down its countdown.
Upon impact, Chrono-grenades create a small sphere which will trap
players in time, making them easy targets. All in all, the multi player
is quite fun, but the back-end is lacking severely compared to its
competitors like Call of Duty 4, Unreal Tournament 3 and Team Fortress
2.
The presentation is a mixed bag, to say the least. The graphics, while
somewhat derivative and a mix of Half-Life 2 and Doom 3, are quite nice
actually and there are some neat features the developers manage to get
out of the third iteration of Epic's UnrealEngine. Most of the textures are crisp even
close up, the draw distance for the more open levels is impressive and
the game features some great particle and rain effects and explosions.
Some of the environment is even dynamically deformable and will demonstrate the aftermath of a heated gun battle.
Character-animation is rather stiff however and the game's cutscenes
using the game engine are utterly lifeless and lack a whole lot of
polish. You'll also encounter a few instances of texture pop-ins and
flickering as well as clipping issues and screen tearing.
The sound design is not up to par with current standards however. Sound
effects from weapons, environments as well as the voice acting is
underwhelming and boring, which coincides with the lackluster dialogue,
and the mixing is inconsistent, making conversations hard to understand
in fire fights (which, while somewhat realistic, doesn't help gameplay
at all). In the same vein, the musical score is just as unimpressive
and forgettable, rarely adding anything to the already hardly present
atmosphere.
As it stands, TimeShift is a matter of missed opportunities. The game had
potential to become a surprise hit if it was given a few more months or
even just weeks to flesh out the story and iron out presentational
quirks. Instead we got a competent but derivative shooter with an
unmemorable story mode and multiplayer that just isn't up to current standards
any more. It's enjoyable while it lasts, but don't expect it to stick
with you any longer than that.
