Timeshift (XBox 360)

This game is a cracker! The ability to manipulate time is a great feature. I rather enjoy blowing-up baddies, and then slowing time; to watch my opponent disappear in a blur of slo-mo body parts ... hilarious!

Due to the actions of the maddened scientist Dr. Crone, a stark alternate reality has been born in the starkly cold Alpha District, one in which he is the cruel dictator, while a pitiful resistance attempts to overthrow his power. And at the heart of his power is the Alpha Suit, a specialised suit designed to be able to withstand the superior forces of travelling through the Fourth Dimension.

And into this conflict comes you, a renowned physicist intent on returning Crone to his own time, and reversing the disastrous consequences of his TimeJump into the rain-drenched Alpha District. Your tool; the prototype Beta Suit, a military grade version of the Alpha Suit that Dr. Crone himself used to launch himself across the space-time continuum.

The idea for Timeshift is indeed a brilliant one, and a comparatively good one when looking at some of the other FPS games on the market. And while a lot of the scientific and technical know-how has been 'dumbed-down' for those of us who can't tell an ion apart from a newton, there is still a point where parts of memories and information get so jumbled up that the very person controlling the Beta Suit will be struggling to understand just what the heck your built in computer (S.S.A.M.), and the NPCs around you are actually talking about.

Another thing that should be noted is that the sound and voice acting quality aren't that hot. The music is nothing special, just your typical FPS background theme, while the voice actors are bland, and about as memorable as the corn flakes you stirred around your bowl this morning. The basic sounds are fine; the gun sounds like a gun, and the rev of an engine works, so no complaints there.

The visuals are both good and bad. While aspects of the graphics really stand out as fantastic in fields such as combat, there is a sharp contrast between this and the basic textures of your environment. While from a distance, things don't look too bad, up close many are just plain flat and ugly. Character design is nothing fantastic, but the weapon design and variety is a good addition.

The gameplay is where Timeshift truly shines. The basic FPS controls, combined with the Timeshifting abilities of the high-tech Beta Suit are a stroke of brilliance. The theories of quantum physics that are applied in Timeshift are amazingly overturned in this FPS, most clearly demonstrated with the abilities of Time Stop, Slow and Reverse. When used correctly, these powers can give you a distinct advantage over enemies, and are also a helpful step in ensuring that regular gameplay never gets boring.

In conclusion, Timeshift is a game that both amazes and disappoints. While the gameplay is indeed fantastic, the visuals and sound do a lot to drag it down, especially when compared to some of the more recent titles that have stepped into the FPS genre, of which Bioshock is probably one of the more prominent. Still, Timeshift's unique gameplay is something that sets it apart from the others of its genre, and well worth the buy if FPS is your forte.

Timeshift is a game to buy. Oddly enough, when you compare it side-by-side in look, feel, length, variety of play, time in SP, and evergreen status versus Halo 3, Orange Box, COD4, or BioShock... it exceeds on all levels. I'm very surprised at the overall quality of the game. It seems like even the dynamic shadows and parallax maps are better than anything seen on gears.I have no idea how they do the reverse time feature as you can do it on the fly and have varied outcomes afterwards. It isn't a rewind.This is a great game at a time where there are a lot of good games.