QUICK CAP REVIEW - Timeshift

Timeshift is a tricky one. Playing it leaves me feeling uneasy. The controls are fiddly, the puzzles contrived, the graphical quality constantly shifts between good and bad and despite all the time-meddling it strikes me as a very old-school shooter. Something about the blinkered level design and predictable enemy AI awakens ancient feelings of discontent spawned from those shooters that I used to play before Half-Life arrived. To top it all off, the difficulty level is through the roof.

So here's the gist:
Baffling plot lays way to standard FPS gameplay with one delicious gimmick - the amazing ability to bend time and space! I can almost hear Uri Gellar throwing down his spoons in envy...

With this special power comes added combat strategy, a silly suit and some very befuddling controls. I'd like an explanation as to why, when Crysis managed multiple settings bound to one mouse button, this crucial feature requires three seperate SHIFT+KEY combinations to get it to work... Not only that, but the developers have also included a key bind that automatically chooses the best time-fuck™ setting for any given situation and that really shouldn't need to exist.

That said, when you do stumble across the right keys, there comes a childish sort of glee from freezing time, stealing an enemy's weapon and blowing them away with it. It also creates a multitude of options in deciding the best way to dispatch a room full of punks.

I can bitch about it all I want, but somehow Timeshift just about won me over during the course of the game. It's linear as hell and all the FPS cliches are present, but it's different enough to remain interesting.

If you love gore and guns and hate Uri Gellar then it's probably worth a go.

SCORE: 74%