First Person TimeShift

Published November 16, 2007

We have seen other games dabble with the fourth dimension (Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones comes to mind), but developer Saber Interactive's TimeShift™ breaks new ground in the first-person shooter genre with its time-bending gameplay and sweeping time traveling story.

The Beta Suit
Sporting gritty, moody graphics on par with some of the system's most beautiful games, a buttery smooth control scheme, and a vast arsenal of innovative and futuristic weaponry, TimeShift could have rested on its laurels with just a solid FPS effort. However, our anonymous hero's Beta Suit and its time-warping mechanics help elevate the game from said solid effort to truly outstanding and innovative status.

The Stalker Rifle looks like a lot of fun.

Imagine a shooter where you can freeze time and unleash your firepower on a group of frozen, powerless enemies, or reach out and rip the gun from an opponent's hands, or even glide over electrically charged water unharmed. Imagine what a shooter might play like if you could rewind time to avoid disastrous results or solve mind-bending puzzles. Now imagine no longer and instead just play the game. Along with slow motion, you have constant access to all these powers. These abilities, previously unexplored in the genre, radically alter your approach and open up a whole new world of battlefield tactics.

TimeShift for Xbox 360 is a perfect marriage
of established genre gameplay and previously
unexplored innovations in the FPS genre.

It's worth noting as well that the HUD (Heads Up Display) for the Beta Suit is among the very best in the genre. It's clean, descriptive, and actively helpful.

• Active help: Your suit can choose the most appropriate time-power on the fly, and will suggest solutions to various obstacles and puzzles.
• Damage alert: The Beta Suit clues you into how badly damaged you are, and there are both visual and voiceover cues, so you'll never be confused when you should back out of danger and replenish those health and shields.
• Radar intelligence: Radar identifies and distinguishes between enemies and allies, but also notes whether they're above, below, or on the same plane as you.
• Red or green: Your aiming reticle will turn red when hovering over an enemy, and green when aimed at an ally. This is great for identifying enemies that blend in well with the environment.

Gotcha.

Further Refinements
The time shifting powers certainly help distinguish TimeShift from its competition, but there are other equally sophisticated gaming refinements.

• Secondary fire: Each and every gun in TimeShift has a secondary fire option. From the assault rifle's grenade launcher to the pistol's four-round burst to the E.M.F Cannon's devastating overload burst, each weapon has two distinct uses.
• Puzzle time: Gunplay makes up the bulk of the game, but the developer has wisely broken up the intense bouts of action with thoughtful, time-based puzzles. It may be something as simple as freezing time to safely walk through a burst pipe, or a bit more complicated such as having to rewind time to rebuild a shattered walkway, but it provides a fun break from the combat.
• Allied personality: So often in first-person shooters you feel alone and isolated from the world around you, but in TimeShift, nearly every ally walks and talks with a personality all their own. From the characters' quips on the battlefield to incidental but often critical dialogue, TimeShift does a remarkable job of bringing life to its science fiction settings.
• Scripted events: Like Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare™ and Gears of War®, TimeShift makes great use of scripted events to advance the story, and to unlock level areas. For example, you may have to hold out against waves of Dr. Krone's cronies until an enormous tank shatters a nearby wall, inadvertently allowing you access to your next objective.

Um … maybe if you said hello to it nicely?

A Stitch in Multiplayer Time
With time-warping mechanics acting as the innovative foundation for the entire single-player campaign, many wondered how they could apply those same principles to a multiplayer environment. The answer is as effective as it is simple. The use of Chrono grenades establishes time-altering "bubbles" that affect every player equally, thus eliminating the problem of, say, freezing time for some players but keeping it real-time for others.

Depending on the grenade thrown, anything caught in a Chrono bubble will freeze, slow down, or even reverse its path. This deceptively simple mechanic makes for multiplayer matches unlike anything else available on the console.

TimeShift for Xbox 360® is a perfect marriage of established genre gameplay and previously unexplored innovations in the FPS genre. If you're still undecided whether TimeShift is worthy of consideration, don't take our word for it, give the free, playable demo available on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace a whirl.

Article by Ryan Treit