TimeShift (Xbox 360)

In the nearby future scientists develop a so-called Quantum suit that allows the carrier to travel through time. Two prototypes called Alpha and Betasuit are ready for testing when Aiden Krone enters the lab, steals the Alphasuit and makes a time-jump before he blows up the building. Luckily you were there and had the chance to jump into the Betasuit and activate the time travel before the building was destroyed. But it took the suit a second too long to jump so the explosion hit it and your jump didn’t go as planned. When you wake up in an alley in the future you quickly realize that Krone has already declared himself leader of the world and transformed it into a totalitarian state with him as the dictator. Shortly after waking up, you are found by some rebels and you join their task in order to stop Krone and fix the timeline since your suit was too badly damaged by the blast.

Fight your way through hordes of enemies with futuristic, but also conventional weapons like pistols or shotguns. Your suit isn’t rendered totally useless. It still allows you to slow down, rewind and forward time for a short period. This not only allows you to overcome obstacles like fire but you can also trick your enemies. Players can slow down the time and then steal the weapon out of the hand of an enemy – if he hasn’t a too strong grip on it. This feature is also used for small time-related puzzles.

There are notable differences with the time manipulation element from the Prince of Persia series. Manipulating the time won’t affect yourself and when you are too badly wounded and die, you can’t just rewind. You remain dead and have to reload. The game also doesn’t feature medipacks. Instead the hero just needs to rest for a second if he is wounded and will then be fully healed again.

Manipulating time is also part of the multiplayer-experience. Besides the normal game-modes Deathmatch, Team-Deathmatch, One-on-One and Capture the flag, the game also features King of Time and Meltdown Madness.

In King of Time there’s a Time Sphere in the center of the map which makes you impervious to all time effects. To win the game you need to rack up kills while you have the item. Meltdown Madness instead requires of you to throw Chrono Grenades at the opposing team’s machine to prevent it from functioning. Once a machine of a team has completed his countdown, that team wins.

The Chrono Grenades are also part of all the other game modes in addition to the Time Shield and the Time Resistance power-up. While the Chrono Grenades come in the three flavors and slow down, forward or rewind time in the area of the blast. The Time Shield not only makes you immune to time manipulation but also slows down every foreign object in a specific area which is good for dodging enemy fire. The Time Resistance power-up grants immunity against all time effects for a short period of time.