
	Platform Playstation 3 Genre Shooter Publisher Sierra Developer Saber Interactive ESRB M (Mature) Released November 19, 2007

- All the first-person shooter conventions are present and accounted for, including multiplayer - Some cool visual effects - The time powers are kinda cool

- Very straightforward - Those that might be expecting the next TimeSplitters should give their head a shake

Review: Rainbow Six Vegas (PS3) Review: Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3) Review: Hour of Victory (360)
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TimeShift

Score: 7.0 / 10

I'm a complete geek for practically anything that involves time travel – A Sound of Thunder, Back to the Future, and Twelve Monkeys are among my favorite – so I was particularly eager to dig into TimeShift. (It comes as no coincidence that I just finished Time Crisis 4 prior to jumping on TimeShift.)

TimeShift opens with some kind of explosion that levels a building and a massive underground complex, which just happens to house a facility working on a suit that can manipulate time. Then you’re dropped into an alternate version of Half-Life 2, complete with big video screens spouting propaganda – with lots of stuff going on. It’s not immediately clear exactly what is going on; though it’s

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- Shooter Game Reviews
- Games Published by Sierra / Vivendi

obvious the villain of the story has traveled back in time to re-create the future. (Insert ominous music here.)

Most of the standard first-person shooter conventions apply: alternate fire for your weapons, grenades to throw, lots of shooting and shouting, massive enemies to avoid (or destroy)… all the

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standards are here. TimeShift’s hook is that you the ability to bend time to your whim for short periods of time. You can pause time, slow it down, or make it go in reverse. At certain points in the game, the suit will select the best of these abilities for a given situation. For example, early in the game you need to reverse an explosion so you can get through the area before it blows up. The time powers can be accessed at any time though so seemingly impossible odds can be evened up quite quickly be slowing down time, sprinting forward, planting a grenade, running further in to take out four more guys, re-entering normal time then watch the grenade take out the remaining enemies. These snippets of opportunity are scattered throughout the game but the time traveling hook doesn’t sink into the gaming flesh quite deep enough. It’s also used for simple problem solving like walking on water after you’ve frozen time.

This part of 2007 seems to be crawling with first-person shooters. TimeShift isn’t among the top tier shooters but it’s at least doubly better than something like Soldier of Fortune: Payback. TimeShift’s enemies at least will show some tactics – a couple of guys will run forward in an attempt to flank you while others will hang back to lay down suppressing fire; there is some challenge to be had through its linear plot and pacing. It doesn’t make TimeShift a bad game, it edges slightly above average thanks to the time powers.

- Omni

(November 29, 2007)