It was perhaps destiny that I picked up a copy of this game for the 360 back when I had an Xbox 360. I played it, perhaps intrigued by the cool concept of slowing down time to shoot enemies. I quickly immersed myself into this wonderful game quickly and beat it within three days. I then quickly went through the game and hunted for achievements. As I played through the game many times in a row, I learned everything there was to know on how to play the game.

I sold the game before I could attempt hard mode and for quite some time moved on. Eventually I would learn that a PC version came out, but it was during a time when I didn't have the proper graphics card to run it. I was upset that my computer didn't have Nvidia.

So fast forward to 2017 and I finally have a computer that can run this game properly. Not a lot of critics like this game. It got average to mixed scores and some reviews on Steam don't like it. I however like this game. I don't even know why I like it. Every time I play this game, I get very into it. Like I said before, I know my way around this game to the point I know of every ambush point, and strategy to fight the various enemies.

So what is Timeshift? Timeshift is a game with a very confusing story. By which I mean, it reveals it in fragments and in hard to understand doses. From what I can piece together thanks to the summery and various other sources, this guy named Krone uses a suit to travel back into time and takes over the world while a nameless scientist or some such travels back as well to stop him.

Your suit is capable of stopping, reversing, and speeding up time and you must use the proper setting to get by puzzles, shoot enemies, and various other time related mishaps. This means you can literally stop time, steal a nameless solder's gun and resume time awaiting the joy and wonder that comes from watching them freak out. Or you can just shoot them with time stop, resume, and deal with them that way.

I like to stop time, steal an enemies gun, and wait for them to find another gun with time resumed. Repeat till you have enough ammo or run out of patience for toying with them and shooting them anyway.

I also like stopping time to just shoot them once and move onto the next idiot like Neo from the Matrix. While this game has a very confusing story that's hard to piece together without outside help or a very good memory, it can be quite fun to play around with the various resources given to you.

The graphics are quite good on PC and I am able to max out everything to make everything pop in an eye pleasing manner and even the console version is pretty. It looks slightly better on PC but the game isn't a disaster in the graphics department. It has a steampunk vibe to it and everything has a metal texture to it. I don't know much about Steampunk outside some things, but it's the first thing that comes to mind.

Like I said before, the story is very hard to understand and it isn't a very good game to rely on story. It's hard to care about the cause you are helping but it can be fun to shoot things so I don't tend to rely on story. This is something I usually focus on so for me to not really care, while unusual, says a lot about my enjoyment of this game.

Personally, I can play this game forever. I have played it 7 times on 360, and just 3 times for PC, but I already know everything there is to know purely from getting immersed. I adore this game and while I don't know why I do, I can play this game many different times on different difficulties.

The campaign takes around 10 hours give or take a bit to get through so it's a moderate length, but not long enough for my tastes.

The soundtrack is minimal, but the songs it gives you during gameplay are a combination of mood music, atmosphere, and rock. I really like the menu music and the full version of it that plays during the credits. Every stage to the game unlocks additional bonus stuff such as art, and music. I don't know if this plays during the game at some point or stuff that was used in Beta or whatever, but it's an additional soundtrack. I don't really care about the sound as it sounds alright to me, but enemies choke on their blood (presumably) if you shoot them, which can be satisfying. (This makes me sound like a weirdo. I swear I am not crazy in that way!) Some bodies sound pulpy and fleshy when you blow them up (again this makes me sound like a freak... It's not who I am) so I guess the sound design is pretty good.

I won't lie, this game isn't that hard. If I am telling you the game isn't hard, it's not hard. I am not the best gamer in the world and not very pro at times. Some fights require additional strategies and Time Powers require mana (A bar at the top left drains when you use it... what else would it be) and it won't last forever. There are puzzles that require certain time abilities and it can be infuriating to figure out what it is you are supposed to do. If you let the game choose, 9 times out of 10 it's the right Time Ability and it won't drain quite as fast.

Sure, there are difficulty spikes and if you are playing for the first time, it can be difficult. There is almost always an area in the shootout that will let you snipe from afar (assuming you have a good weapon for sniping. Don't try to snipe an enemy with a shotgun unless it's a last resort and you have nothing else) and there will almost always be cover or a place to hide, I mean strategically wait for a better opportunity to fight. There are only four really annoying areas in the game that may prove a little difficult for you... At least if you are me who isn't all that bad at the normal levels and capable of shooting properly.

Two of them are turret levels where you have to shoot mines and ships and protect your own ship from blowing up. You have a health meter that seems to regenerate slowly (I don't know if it is caused by blowing up enough ships or simply surviving long enough for it to regenerate) One is an area toward the end of the game where a giant fan is sucking everything in it's path toward it and you have to go to the end of the path in front of you while finding the proper path. This is the hardest level simply by figuring out the proper Time Power to use and the right cover as well. The final boss is pretty hard as well if you are playing on medium or hard.

While not the greatest game in the world or capable of winning any awards any time soon, I have a ton of fun with it. I don't know (I keep saying this and it's true... I really really don't know why I have the amount of fun I have with it) my reasons for it, but this is really one of my favorite games to waste time in.

I learned my way through the game on my second playthrough and nothing takes me awhile to get through unless I am being an idiot or something. If you aren't going to be bothered by a few shortcomings, a hard to care about cast, a vague story, or any of that nonsense, it can be a fun way to kill an afternoon you have nothing at all productive to do for. It's not the perfect score I give it, it might be a 7/10 or even 6/10 for you, but I love this game. It makes me happy. Some people tell me it's similar to Half Life 2. Having never played Half Life 2, I can't really confirm if this is true or not.

It's a very easy to learn game with a fantastic Time Mechanic that can make trolling enemies fun. Sure it may make me sound like a freak if I say I really like shooting them when they are unarmed or hearing them choke on their own blood (again presumably... it's hard to tell) but I am not a bad person. I just get really into this game.

Final Score 10/10

Your Probable Score 6/10 or 7/10 depending on how much you care. You might even hate it enough to rate it lower.