Timeshift Review - The Next Level

Timeshift

Videogame protagonists have the worst luck. In this case, you're a researcher working on a top secret project to travel through time. A career choice that never seems to work out for anyone in the movies either. The problem here is the head of the project decides he'd rather be dictator for life in an alternate timeline, so he steals the Alpha version of the time traveling suit, and sets a bomb to blow up the research facility while you're still inside it. You manage to hop in the Beta suit just as the shockwave hits, leaving you a bit frazzled in a past that shouldn't be. Before you know it, you'll be aiding the rebels in overthrowing the mad doctor because how else are you going to collect your back pay?

Timeshift is an incredibly polished, incredibly linear, visceral and mainly unambitious first person shooter. For the most part, this dark alternate version of 1938 is richly realized with some details immediately familiar and elements, such as the advanced technology, starkly alien. This starts with the design of the weapons and vending machines, right up to the tanks and massive walkers that stride about the ruined city. Even the enemy armor and ammo boxes help create a feeling of another world, but Timeshift never reaches past this. It never anchors the story or characters in any way that's as memorable as Half-life 2, which this game imitates to an extent, and so these details feel a bit wasted.

So while clueless when it comes to story pacing, there's little wrong with how the action unfolds. The game is absolutely linear. There is always only one direction to head, only one door that will open, only one gate that will allow you to pass, though once you accept this, you won't care. The environments are nicely varied from interiors to exteriors, sewers to rooftops, ruined cities to snowy mountains. Narrow corridors are mixed with wide open areas, but the one thing you can always count on is an enemy soldier waiting to put a few holes in your fancy time traveling suit. Sometimes these encounters can feel a little too scripted, like when a soldier runs out in front of you and has to stop at his mark before opening fire. They also fall for choke point tactics a bit too easily, running through a doorway that already has a stack of their dead buddies lying next to it. Still, they'll give you a run for your safety with their duck and cover tactics, and eagerness to flank your position in open areas. Since they're armored and you're not, you'll end up a smear on the roadway if you don't give them a time out.

Your time powers are handed to you unceremoniously in the second level, instead of being introduced to each one in turn. You can slow down time for some "bullet time" style combat, outrunning and outgunning your now turtle-like foes. You can completely stop time, which eats up your time juice in a hurry, but needed for getting past certain obstacles and snatching an enemy's weapon out of his hands. There's also reverse time, which pretty much is only used in set circumstances against deadly set pieces. It's a complete waste you can't reverse time when you die, as in Prince of Persia, which would have helped Timeshift feel a little less like a standard first person shooter. Why don't you have any ability to sprint, cloak, take cover, use disguises...heck why no nightvision or a damn flashlight in the darker areas? Slowing and stopping time is cool, but Timeshift comes out thin when it comes to player abilities.