When you first start up TimeShift you are greeted with a short cutscene that seems to be a mere snippet of a larger movie. You quickly piece together that the game’s main antagonist, Aiden Krone, has developed a suit capable of time travel - the Quantum Suit - and has begun using it for his own devious purposes. That’s right about when you, an unnamed theoretical physicist, grab an experimental advanced Quantum Suit and attempt to track Krone down into the past. You land in an unnamed city under siege by a dictator in 1939, only this is not the 1939 of known history. Here it rains constantly due to the weather being meddled with, big zeppelins float through the sky waving spotlights over everything, futuristic-looking jets screech across the sky, and a giant four-legged walking fortress slowly ambles its way through the city causing wanton mayhem and destruction.

Welcome to Alpha District, indeed. From there you learn that Krone has placed himself in power at some unknown point in the past, thus altering the current time stream. Your suit’s Origin Drive is damaged, stranding you in the past. So it is then that you take up with the resistance movement fighting against Krone and his army, using your time suit’s powers of slowing, stopping, and reversing time along the way.

Developed by Saber Interactive, TimeShift has a bit of a storied history. Originally planned for release on the original Xbox, the game had a more steampunk setting and promised to not be just another face in the crowd. Nearing completion, Saber was ready to pop the cork on the champagne bottles when publisher Sierra picked up the game and requested some changes. First, tone down the steampunk; second, rein the game in a bit more to streamline things; and third, take an extra year or so to polish things to a glossy sheen. Saber obliged, and here we are with TimeShift in its current form.

TimeShift itself is very much what those in the know call a “corridor shooter”, in that the game takes place mostly on a rail with the player having to navigate from point A to point B to point C ad naseum. However the game is not all corridors as much of it takes place in outdoor environments, so it might be more appropriate to call it a “setpiece shooter”. And really the game is only at its best when the level design takes you on many twists and turns, and allows you to get a peek at the war going on around you. For instance, the first chapter, Alpha District, varies between shootouts in courtyards and parks, very rarely taking place just in the streets as the path through the level winds through several dilapidated buildings, underground tunnels, and so forth. There is also a lot happening in the background. Krone rides around in his walking fortress destroying things while buildings burn and crumble all about you, and zeppelins and jet fighters dot the dreary rainy skies. At it’s best the game creates an almost tangible sense of place and sucks you right in, though that doesn’t mean it’s not without it’s boring filler areas. The snowy, mountaintop level, for instance, is kind of boring as it’s mostly just a straight path through the mountains with the highlights being one or two interesting setpieces, such as a crashed zeppelin, that you don’t hang around on for too long.

The real hook comes from your ability to manipulate time and how it affects the gameplay. With slow, stop, and reverse at your disposal there’s a lot of potential there for some interesting moments within the setpiece areas. You’ll spend most of your time using the slow time power, along with your weapon of choice, to handle firefights, with stop and reverse coming into play for environmental hazards, such as stopping time so you can walk through fire or across electrified water. Reverse time is sadly a bit underused, with the player only bringing it out of the bag when something like a collapsing bridge needs to be rebuilt or in more personal cases like when an enemy throws a grenade at you need some extra time getting to safe cover. There is also a light puzzle element in that you’ll be stopping time after hitting a switch or turning a crank and then scrambling to get through a closing door. One area early on requires you to hit a switch to bring a platform of boxes hanging from a crane over to where you’re at, and then hitting the switch again, slowing time, and climbing up a bunch of crates to get on top of the makeshift platform before it starts moving away from you too quickly. For the most part however the puzzle elements could have been expanded a bit more, or there could at least be more of them throughout the game. As it is now, it feels a little half-baked.

TimeShift is full of little details that you might not notice at first, like the video screens throughout the city broadcasting Krone’s messages to quell the uprising can be shot out. Or in the enemy animation, I smiled to myself the first time I stopped time, grabbed an enemy’s gun out of his hands, and then unstopped time to see his frightened reaction as he cowered in fear. It is also quite satisfying to stop time, unload six or seven shotgun shells into a bad guy’s face, and then watching him ragdoll in slow motion. Other times it’s in the enemy dialogue, where one time I came upon a group of enemies armed to the teeth. I froze time, grabbed the leaders gun, then ducked back out into cover before time resumed its normal flow. The squad leader said something along the lines of “Hang back! We don’t know what he’s capable of!” which made me feel all cool and bad ass. The game has nine weapons total, each of which has an alternate fire mode. They range from your standard assault rifle and shotgun to guns that shoot electricity and blobs of fire. There are a couple different grenade types as well, but you only really use one in single player.

Multiplayer sounds fun in theory, with a variety of different game types ranging from standard death match and capture the flag, to more creative types that require use of “time grenades” that alter time but only in their own limited sphere. There is also a nice breadth of customization options if none of the standard types fit your fancy. My problem was finding people to play with. Since TimeShift came out along the sides of Halo 3 and The Orange Box it would seem that everyone else on Live was playing those instead, as I had trouble finding games with more than a few people who weren’t also twelve years old. There are also a number of unlockable extras you get for playing through single player, but these mostly boil down to the cutscenes, the music tracks, and some production artwork. The game itself comes with an extra DVD called The TimeShift Chronicles, which basically amounts to some interviews with the leading developers talking about how TimeShift came to be.

Overall: 8.0/10