TimeShift has had a rough beginning to its life. Originally meant to be published by the financially stricken Atari, the franchise was then brought by Sierra in April 2006 and was shown at E3 that May. Although it impressed many parts of the media at that stage, I personally wasn't impressed by what I saw. After being delayed several times and rumours of abandonment ran wild, Sierra announced they were completely overhauling the game, changing the visual style (the original's steampunk feel wasn't working), and fixing the many bugs that existed. This new version finally saw the light of day in November 2007. Between E3 2006 and now, although the main concept remains the same, the resultant game has changed substantially. The main character's identity has been removed, in favour of an anonymous hero, and the time machine device is now the hero's suit.

In the future, scientists have created two prototypes for a time machine suit: Alpha and Beta. The Beta suit uses a far more advanced version of the technology, including features to prevent the creation of time paradoxes. This feature is not included in the Alpha suit which a rogue scientist, Doctor Aiden Krone, has stolen. He, of course, has taken advantage of this feature, gone back in time and changed the future. Krone makes himself ruler of a dystopia he calls the Krone Magistrate. You are then given the Beta suit and sent into the past to help the rebellion fight Krone's army.

The Beta suit is not only self-healing, it also has a unique feature of manipulating time. Unlike F.E.A.R. where you can only slow time, in TimeShift you are able to slow, pause and even reverse time. The only restriction on this time travel is you are unable to affect the surroundings when you are reversing time. During the game you are expected to use this feature frequently, both to attack enemies and to solve puzzles. If you are the type of player who loves to charge into enemies, you will love using the time manipulation features. You are able to slow time just a bit longer then you can pause it and there is nothing more fun then slowing time and charging your enemies, stealing their weapons and then hitting them in the head with the butt of your weapon. During this slow-down you are able to attack multiple enemies before you are required to run away, take cover and recharge your suit. Although this feature is a lot of fun you do become very reliant on it during the game. You are also required to manipulate time to figure out how to make your way though puzzles, including getting on elevators before they move, moving two levers in different places that must be moved at the same time and even train surfing.

While playing TimeShift, I noticed a lot of influences from the Half-Life series of games as well as F.E.A.R., I'm not sure if this was a bad or a good thing. Having similarities to two of the biggest titles of the last couple of years can't be a bad thing, however it took away a little from the gameplay for me. It had a longish Half-Life style introduction to the game, where you walk around a bit before you get a weapon and find your true purpose of the game. The puzzles also resembled the ones in Half-Life 2, however instead of using the Gravity Gun to solve the problems, you use your suit's time manipulating properties. During the game you a character that I can only assume is Krone appears and then disappears in front of you, which combined with the time manipulating features and the engine itself, reminded me of F.E.A.R. Saying this I loved both these titles, so features that resembled both of them really doesn't take away from this game.

However there were some things in TimeShift that did annoy me, so I guess you could call this the negative part of what I consider a quite good game. There were gameplay aspects that really drove me crazy. The first one might have just been me however during parts of the game I felt you died far more easily than others, an example: in a room with 5-10 enemies, you can charge your way through them with little more than a scratch - but in other parts I found myself dying with just a couple of enemies around me. I'm not sure if it was me getting complacent when there was less enemies but I did it a lot. The other major gripe I had with the gameplay was the world's most nagging commanding officer when fighting with a squad. Every 10-20sec he would repeat a couple of looping comments regardless of what you were doing, for example "We need you to open the gate" and "We are sitting ducks out here, open the gate". While I was hard at work figuring out how to open the gate, all I wanted to do was to go back and shoot the CO, he drove me insane. The only other gripe I had was the auto-save positions of the game. Sometimes you found yourself re-spawning with three guys surrounding you, or my favourite, the one where I spawned only to find someone shooting at me.

Technically the game runs very well, and is up to scratch on most games released today. The weapons are attractive, physics work well, and audio for the most was fine. As a rule, the gameplay was smooth and controls were responsive (well, as responsive as the person using them anyway). During the game I only noticed slowdown once or twice, and no lockups or crashes. I did however notice a bug during one area of the game - when I re-spawned after dying, the CO's commands would cut off partway through, this wouldn't have been a problem, however I die more than the average user so it got a little annoying. However, it's nothing that can't be fixed with a patch.

Overall this was quite a good game, It's not groundbreaking or exceptional, however it was enjoyable to play and if you are a fraps player who enjoys charging enemies you will be pleased with TimeShift. I really hope that they are able to modify the voices or scripts of the CO in game as it really annoyed me while playing, and I would be happy to up my score if that was changed. From what I saw two years ago, TimeShift has advanced in leaps and bounds, and has become a good game in its own right. With attractive looks and overall enjoyable gameplay, plus the bonus of multiplayer it is a worthy addition to any gamer's collection.