The details of the story so far, then: you play as Michael Swift, a renowned test pilot. Mr Swift grew to prominence because he was able to withstand enormous G-forces throughout his testing career. This gave him the privilege of being the first person to try out a new time-travelling technology. After successfully jumping out to 1911, he comes back to find that the future has been completely changed into a world that is over-run by an evil dictator. You join up with a resistance crew to help over throw the dictator, though this is all we know so far.
Now do that again in slo-mo.
When you’re back in the present, you’ll have time-manipulation powers at your disposal. These cover the basic needs of slow-down, stop and rewind. We don't know whether there'll be more at this point but what we have so far makes for some fascinating possibilities. While mechanics like “bullet-time” have been prevalent in games over the past few years, so TimeShift has a bit of work ahead of it if it wants to distinguish itself.
Obviously, slowing down time will allow you to dodge enemy fire. No matter how many times it’s done, it’s still very satisfying to watch bullets fly by. For those in need of gore, you can slow down your sniper shots for precision and for some gruesome splatter effects. Stopping time actually allows you to steal an enemies weapon and you can sit back and laugh at his reaction, before proceeding to blow him away. We have not been informed on what limitations the time-manipulation will have. It will be interesting to see what else will be added.
There was only one level that was available to play. It involved our character making his way up the side of a building, knocking off the strategically placed enemies in the manner deemed most suitable. Towards the end, we were caught on the spot by a helicopter. It was quite difficult to take down and we could only do so once we figured out that we needed to use our abilities to slow down time and blow up a rocket that was in the right place. We found that the game implemented some Prince of Persia style puzzles and surprisingly, they fit in reasonably well. To board a glider at the end of the level, you need to slow-down time, press a button and get in as quick as possible.
There's a lot of high-tech weapons and gadgetry.
Graphically, the game was very commendable. The visuals in general were impressive and retained their own sense of style. A lot of the game - especially the exteriors - was reminiscent of Doom 3, off a high-end PC, not an Xbox.
Overall, TimeShift leaves a favourable impression. It implements the time-manipulation features well and looks to pull out a bit of variety. The problem is that it's treading deeply familiar ground, and thus it's up to the developers to try and make it as distinctive and enjoyable as possible. It'll be very interesting to see what more can be added as well. TimeShift is scheduled for a release later this year on Xbox 360 and PC.
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