ID:45130
 
I expected more Time Shifting...

I picked the game up yesterday and I've got to say I'm pretty unimpressed with it. I went in expecting something else. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't a Half-Life 2 style FPS.
What seems to be bugging me is how weak the Time Powers are. You can rewind, slow and even stop the flow of time, however you can only do it for a second or two so there's not really anything interesting you can do with them. Getting hit by a sticky grenade then rewinding so it goes back into the enemies hands is probably the coolest thing I've seen so far.

Other than that the game just feels slow. I'm not sure if it's because I'm used to playing Free-For-All Call of Duty 4 but everything from walking to shooting feels slower than it should be (especially considering it's a time themed game!).
It's something about the impact that has on clearing rooms in the two games. In Call of Duty 4 you clear a room with a bang, bang, bang sweep. In Time Shift you aim, bang, bang, bang, aim, bang, bang, bang, aim, bang, bang, bang (probably with a reload or two in there).
The result is that in Call of Duty 4 I feel like I'm moving towards my objective (with plenty of action along the way). In Time Shift I stop paying attention to my objective and focus on clearing rooms.

Overall this would have been a cool level in one of the Half-Life 2 episodes but all that really pushes it apart from the other FPS games is that it has Time Powers. With the Time Powers being as weak as they are it just doesn't have what it takes to stand on it's own.
Nice CSS!

I played this one weekend with a friend (trading off the controller) -- didn't finish it but got pretty close. I liked it a lot, but I was more interested in the alternate-1930's setting and the timeshifting gimmick than in the actual FPS mechanics of it (which seemed fine to me; I was impressed that I eventually learned to use cover pretty wisely, but then I'm not an FPS connoisseur).

Once the contest judging is done (hopefully tonight) I may reward myself by picking up a copy...
Thanks.

I'll admit as I've gotten used to playing it properly (using Time Powers to move between cover and stuff) I've started to like it more. Still not sure if it was worth the price but it was pretty cheap so it isn't that hard to justify.