Timeshift

TimeShift puts you in control of Michael Swift, an ex-pilot that gets a chance to try out a new time traveling suit from the military. You travel to the past and upon your return to the present, the world has changed dramatically and is now under the control of an evil Imperial regime. You fight along side a resistance force and try to figure out what really happened.

It shouldn’t take you too long to realize this game is all about time shifting. You get three basic time shifting features; the first being the “bullet-time,” or slowed down time, which recharges the fastest. The second feature lets you stop time completely, and the third will rewind time. The great thing about TimeShift is that it not only lets you use time shifting techniques in combat, but it also presents puzzles that you need to solve using your time suit.

TimeShift takes full advantage of the whole 360 controller, where every button is used for some sort of maneuver. I did think the aiming could use some tweaking, as it felt a little too stiff and not as fluid as some of the other first person shooter games we have seen on the 360. The game was also kind of tough; it was almost impossible to stay alive during combat without using your timeshift powers. Running and gunning definitely won’t work in this game; it is very obvious the developers want you to take full advantage of your wonderful time suit.

The game looks quite sharp and the graphics are pretty good for the most part. I very much so enjoyed the gun designs and the game started to remind me of some old-school PC first person shooters like Quake and Half-Life 1. When entering a time shifting phase, a cool glow will appear in front of you, and the colors will differentiate based on which one you chose.

Based on the demo level, this game looks like it will be a fun shooter. It’s very nice to see the developers putting in puzzles and challenges in which you have to use your time shifting capabilities in order to progress. Hopefully this will provide a very unique gameplay experience that can be coupled with some nice graphics. Look for TimeShift when it comes out for the Xbox 360 this September.