Minimum System Requirements
Intel Pentium 4 1.5 ghz/ AMD Athlon 1.5 ghz
Memory 512 Ram
128 MB Video Card with Hardware T&L

Test System
3.0 GHz Intel P4 with HT
1 GB of Dual Channel RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT 256  

Companies are always looking for an interesting slant on the normal FPS game. Timeshift takes a page from Prince of Persia and wants to mix things up by controlling time. Wearing an experimental suit, our hero has gone back in time, but when he returns the world is much different than the one he left. Along with some rebels you fight to return the world to its true path.

The game will allow you to stop, freeze and even rewind time to complete your objectives. Timeshift is slated to have over 30 missions, and include features such as drivable vehicles, a 16 person multiplayer and 10 futuristic weapons, all with alternate attack modes. The game will run on the built in-house Saber 3D engine.

The demo is out, so I figured a bit of a play test was needed. The first thing I noticed was major mouse lag in the GUI screen. It had this floating feel that made it a bit hard to even move. Never one to let a little lag stop me, I fired the game up at 800 x 600 resolution with all the settings cranked up and gave it a try. It was kind of like playing on a server with 300 ping. I would move my mouse and it would follow along later. Sure my system is not top of the line, but come, on I have an NVIDIA card. The way it’s meant to be played! After running around just trying to get a look at the game in all its glory, I started to wonder what the big deal was. It was not that great looking to be this laggy. I took a few screen shots and turned off every setting I could find for my play test.

The game did not look that much different. Lights did not have that bloom effect and every surface lost that shiny look it had. The concert, brick walls and cars with full settings had that fresh coat of wax look but turned down it looked pretty standard, or dare I say it, better. After looking at some screenshots from the fan site kit and comparing them to mine, I would expect the full game to have a better texture package, or some artist went overboard. The mouse lag was gone at least, so let's mess with time.

Just a few key binds would let me stop, slow or rewind time. On the screen the interface looked like a basic CD player so it was easy to tell what was going on with my freezing. One cannot freeze time forever though. There is an energy bar that can run out and has to recharge before it can be used again. Health is also rechargeable as well, a-la Halo. One of the more interesting uses of freezing time allowed me to walk through fire. The effects on the screen when you use the time function are some of the neater ones I have seen in awhile. It gives you that 'I just dove into a pool of water' look.

The use of the time device made fighting a breeze. With the recoilless weapons slowing down time, hitting a few headshots took little effort at all. Let us talk about the weapons before we get to deep in this here. The demo features three: a pistol, an assault rifle and a flamethrower. Each weapon had an alternate attack that made each one useful, but the flamethrower, called the KP-HellRazer, was the most fun. The alt mode is your basic flamethrower, used to burn your frozen-in-time adversaries. However, the primary fire mode features incendiary bullets that catch enemies on fire from a distance. I have not had this much fun playing with fire since the spray can in Blood. As cool as this weapon was though, it did not help the boring game play. The entire game seems set up to be played on a console, which it is actually set to be released on. The game claims to have a great A.I. system, but besides seeing a guy hide behind a truck they were never alive long enough to truly be a threat.

Overall this will probably be a big hit on the console market, and your little sister will love it on the PC, but most hardcore FPS fans will probably give this a pass.

But hey don’t believe me, get the demo off the official site and give it a go!

View the complete Timeshift Gallery