TimeShift wants you to break the clock. Saber Interactive’s 2007 first-person shooter hands you a suit that can slow, stop and rewind time, then drops you into a rain-soaked alternate 1939 where a rogue scientist has already used that same power to crown himself ruler. It is a shooter built on one idea, and that idea is good enough to carry it most of the way.
Trailer, via IGN.
Dr. Aiden Krone and the Alpha Suit
The setup is clean. Scientists in the near future build two devices: the Alpha Suit, a prototype jumpsuit, and the Beta Suit, a more advanced military-grade model with combat-related time manipulation and an integrated artificial intelligence called Strategic Systems for Adaptable Metacognition, or S.S.A.M. S.S.A.M. exists to assist in combat and to prevent temporal paradoxes.
Dr. Aiden Krone runs the project. He rigs the laboratory to explode, takes the Alpha Suit and travels into the past. There he uses his knowledge to alter the timeline and installs himself as ruler of the Krone Magistrate, which controls a dystopian world.
You are an unnamed fellow scientist who takes the Beta Suit and follows him. The source notes the protagonist was originally intended to be a soldier named Colonel Michael Swift. What shipped is a blanker figure, and that blankness costs the game something. Krone gets a name, a title and a scheme. You get a suit.
Slowing Time in the Alpha District
The chase lands in 1939, in an alternate timestream, in a place called Alpha District. The city is bleak and rain-soaked and battle-torn. You watch Krone’s army violently suppress rebel forces.
Then the Sentinel arrives: a giant walking fortress. Faced with certain death, S.S.A.M. triggers “auto-return” and pulls you back in time to safety. Parts of the Beta suit are damaged in the transport, and you can no longer revert to the original timeline. So you throw in with the Occupant Rebellion, fighting to salvage parts from Krone’s Alpha suit.
You save many of their members and support their raids. You meet Commander Cooke, the leader of the Occupants. The rebellion gives the shooting a reason to keep moving, though Cooke and his people register more as mission-givers than as characters.
Blueshift, Yellow Haze, White Filter
The time powers are the whole game, and Saber commits to them. You can slow, stop or rewind time more or less at will. Stop it and you can dodge an incoming projectile or steal an enemy’s weapon. Specific puzzles require the same abilities. Some sections lengthen your powers.
The powers also repaint the screen, and this is the smartest thing TimeShift does. Slowing time produces a blueshift. Rewinding produces a yellow haze. Stopping time creates a white filter. You always know what you have done to the clock without checking a meter.
| Time action | Visual effect | Combat use |
|---|---|---|
| Slow | Blueshift | Manage fast-moving fights |
| Rewind | Yellow haze | Undo a mistake, reposition |
| Stop | White filter | Dodge a projectile, steal a weapon |
That table is the game in miniature. Three verbs, three colors, one loop.
Where the Beta Suit Runs Out
TimeShift shipped on PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360. The Windows and Xbox 360 versions arrived in October and November 2007; the PlayStation 3 version followed in November and December. It drew mixed reviews, and the published critical aggregate sits at 7.5 out of 10 across five outlets. That number is fair, and it is fair for a specific reason.
The time mechanics are not a gimmick bolted onto a standard shooter. They are the shooter. Stopping a bullet mid-flight and plucking the gun from the hand that fired it is a genuine pleasure, and the puzzle rooms that force you to rewind a broken sequence are the best argument the game makes for itself.
What holds TimeShift at 7.5 rather than higher is everything around that core. The Alpha District is a single note held too long: dark, wet, ruined, repeat. Krone is a villain with a plan but almost no presence. The unnamed protagonist never becomes anyone. The rebellion exists to hand you objectives.
The suit is the only character in TimeShift with a personality, and it is a piece of equipment.
The Case for 7.5
Here is the part worth watching. TimeShift arrived in a decade crowded with shooters that had better stories and better heroes, and it survived on a mechanic. That is a real achievement, and it is also a ceiling. Saber built a system that rewards planning and improvisation, then wrapped it in a campaign that rarely asks you to care about anything except the next room.
Play it for the clock. The blueshift, the yellow haze and the white filter are worth the trip. Just do not expect the man inside the Beta Suit to be the reason you stay.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
