fter years of painful fits and restarts, TimeShift’s release has finally shifted to the present. Sierra’s world-weary shooter stars the “suit guy,” a scientist in a badass time-altering suit who travels to an alternate universe to stop an insane colleague from force-feeding his ideology to the general populace. TimeShift rips several pages out of the Half-Life 2 playbook – scripted in-game events, side character NPC dialogue that colors the setting, and propaganda speech blaring over urban centers all come together to create a vaguely familiar dystopian world. But the similarities end here; the game assaults players with senseless cutscenes during loading sequences that fail to flesh out the rest of story in a cohesive way.

Once you jump into the action, TimeShift showcases its unique characteristics. You can pause time to disarm enemies, place grenades in their pockets, or relocate to confuse them. By fast-forwarding time you can quickly dispatch opponents, and reversing time can get yourself out of a jam, like that inconveniently placed sticky grenade attached to your torso. Admiring your handiwork during time alteration is one of the game’s highlights; soldiers’ bodies will convulse as you riddle them with bullets, and slow-motion grenade explosions create frenzied destruction sequences that never get old.

Since your character has such an advantage over the average grunt, Saber Interactive upgraded the enemy AI so they can stay in the fight. The cunning AI is reminiscent of F.E.A.R. in that these mercs will hunt you down if you hide to recover health and rearm. They will stick to cover, flank, counter-attack, and pursue depending on the battle situation. I even had a particularly savvy enemy throw a grenade down a sewer hole where I was hiding.

The arsenal used to dispatch these smart soldiers has some definite standouts. While the standard rifle is handicapped due to its much-too-large reticle, most players will gravitate towards two particular guns. The TimeShift shotgun isn’t a dumbed down weapon like you’ll find in Halo 3 – this bad boy splatters organs with the best of them. The crossbow is another favorite – it fires projectiles that explode upon impact. Land enough of these in your enemies during a time freeze and watch it rain limbs and torsos when you unpause the action.

While exploring your time-altering gifts will keep your attention for several levels, halfway through the game you’ll start to feel déjà vu as you move through the clichéd warehouses and engineering plants. To make matters worse, the simplistic environmental puzzles feel recycled from past titles. TimeShift also isn’t above the occasional laggy sequence or game freeze.
On the multiplayer side, the gameplay centers on owning the battlefield through the use of well-placed time-altering grenades. When players are launching these at each other the game feels very disorienting, but they can bail savvy players out of sticky situations. In the end, the discombobulating action and lack of unlockables and a ranking system keep TimeShift from competing with big multiplayer titles.

While it may not approach the craftsmanship or innovation of a Half-Life 2, TimeShift introduces enough interesting elements to its derivative gameplay to make this game worth a look.