Review #802: TimeShift

 Ironically forgotten by time.

 Last year I made a thread asking for a very specific kind of game, games like Dungeon Siege or Half-Life 2, in which you are always moving forward, and always in control, y'know, a game that feels like one big whole. This first-person shooter, TimeShift, was recommended, and right after the third stage I knew... I knew that it definitely wasn't what I wanted. That said, I'm not disappointed in my purchase, because despite it being another grey fps in a grey-and-brown world it has a few original mechanics and ideas that make it rather fun.

 The plot of the game was hard to follow, but you play as a mute scientist wronged by another scientist named Krone. Both were working on Time-shifting suits, the Alpha and the Beta suit, and for an undisclosed reason Krone betrays you and steals the Alpha suit. Now you get the Beta suit and track him through time in an effort to stop him destroying the lab and killing everyone. Kinda. You travel to a very futuristic looking 1939 and assist a resistance group in stopping the new Krone world order. Throughout the game you'll get flashbacks to before the big betrayal, but nothing of worth is told, it's pure fat. The game is 24 missions long, which is pretty decent, sadly, multiplayer was online only, so no offline versus.

 At first glance, this is just your every day modern FPS, with regenerating health and a three-gun limit, which is one more gun than most modern fps. Every gun has an alternate fire, which is a pretty neat throwback to classic FPSs and melee doesn't instantly kill your enemy, so it's more like a last resort kind of tool. What set this game apart is the ability to Slow, Pause and Rewind time, thanks to your suit. There's a blue gauge shared by all three abilities that dictates when and for how long you can use these abilities, and it regenerates over time. I think that it refills a bit faster when you're getting hit, but it might've felt like that. Using these time abilities is paramount for your survival, because despite having this amazing suit you are quite fragile, and triggering any time ability will also boost your regeneration speed.

 The suit will autoselect the most 'appropriate' power for the situation you're in, so that you can just press L1 to activate, but if you disagree, just hold L1 and press the designated face button. For the most part, it'll default to Slow, it will go towards Pause when dangerously low on health and will select Rewind if a grenade is coming your way. Pause and Rewind may seem similar, but they have different uses, Slow actually makes you faster and lasts way longer than Pause which is why it makes it so useful when you need to retreat for cover, as it'll give you ample time compared to pause. Pause is better when fighting smaller groups of enemies or when fighting enemies that can also slow down time or teleport. Rewind was my least used ability in combat, and only used it because the game defaulted to it sometimes.

 Another way you can toy with your powers is by pausing time and stealing the weapons from your enemies' hands. Or you can just shoot them out of their hands too if that's your approach. Enemies explode in satisfying chunks of blood after being pelted with bullets while in Time Pause which never ceases to be fun. Most enemies are immune to headshots, justified by helmets, and was probably done to compensate for your time controlling prowess. There's a fair amount of different weaponry in the game, my favorites where the Shotgun, which felt so good, and the machinegun that had a flamethrower alternate fire. While your character is frailer than a CoD protagonist, the game feels more close to games like Painkiller and Doom, with fast paced shooting mechanics that feel nice... but as a whole feels a bit weird, since the gameplay almost makes you want to start circle-strafing everyone to death, but that will only get you killed in seconds flat.

 There are a few simple puzzles in the game that task you with using your time powers, they are pretty simple and the game usually defaults the right power, so you can easily figure out what it entails. That said, there are smart uses of your powers, such as two levers needing to be pulled at the same time, so you slowdown time and run to the other lever and pull it. Or use Rewind to make a turbine blow you upwards instead of vacuuming the air. Or pause/slow down time in order to cross through a board balancing on a pivot. They are not hard to figure out, but they make sense for your powers, which is pretty neat. I had a few iffy moments with some of the platforming elements, but nothing game breaking.

 While it wasn't anywhere near close to what I wanted, TimeShift was very fun in its own right. Time Shifting was well implemented, and easily sets it apart from other games.... although it seems that that just wasn't enough to stand out when your game looked like every other grey-and-brown shooter of its era.
 7.0 out of 10