The voice acting in the game is fairly well done, although it can get hard to hear the characters throughout some of the more action oriented scenes. That difficulty seems to underscore the developers' lack of emphasis on the story, as if they didn't really care if you heard the characters or not. You will hear a lot of repeated exclamations of surprise from allies and foes as you manifest your time abilities, however, so prepare to hear witticisms like "What happened?" multiple times through your trek.

The enemy A.I. isn't very bright in TimeShift. Most of the time the enemy either stands in place or charges you aggressively, so the savvy player can fall back and pick foes apart as they approach. There was an instance in the game where I'd come out of a sewer line in the ground and into an area swarming with foes. Once the enemy was alerted to my presence, I fell back into the hole and waited. The enemies didn't realize what had happened to me and approached the edge of the hole, where I casually picked them off one by one.

While the single player experience doesn't offer much beyond the time manipulation gimmick, the multiplayer is fun to play. TimeShift has all of the requisite game modes, including Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, One on One, and Capture the Flag. There are a few unique modes that take advantage of the game's time motif as well, which is a little different from the single player. In multiplayer your character throws chrono grenades that affect time in the way the timesuit does. This means the blast radius of your grenade can slow, stop, or reverse everyone and everything caught in its wake. These effects play into some of the multiplayer modes such as King of Time, which is like King of the Hill but with the "king" impervious to chrono grenades while in his time sphere.

Overall, TimeShift is a decent shooter with a gimmick that sets it apart. Without the time shifting abilities, TimeShift would have been a less than mediocre shooter, especially considering some of the amazing FPS games that it has to compete with. The time manipulation gimmick makes TimeShift an enjoyable if forgettable experience.

By D'Marcus Beatty
CCC Lead Contributor / News Director

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