Being Chronos was never so fun.
It's truth that the history doesn't make a sense at all and you just get hours of action without a clear reason why you're doing this or that. It's really strange in how people of past accepted a man with a strange suit walking through the streets. The fact that you help the rebel forces doesn't mean that they have to trust you just because of that fact. But they just don't care, they don't ask and it's seems that they can live fine without knowing nothing about the player. And the player just receives orders and more orders saying to do all the sort of missions. All starts when Dr. Krone steals the Alpha suit and travel back time. The game doesn't explain, but you had the access to the Beta suit and, after put it on, the player just have to travel back in time too and stop Dr. Krone. When you arrive, it's all a mess and a civil war is happening because of Dr. Krone, that is trying to dominate the world - I think that he's trying, the game don't explain why he steal the suit or why the player have to go after him. Actually, the player doesn't even have a name...
Whatever. Any other consideration about Timeshift's history is unnecessary. It has really good ideas and if had been better worked and refined, this game probably would be in a higher concept. It just lacks depth and sense at all.
Your suit isn't a resistant armor like the Mark V suit (Half-Life 2), but the possibility to control time makes the Beta suit a little more... advantageous, let's say it. Slow down time to get the same effect that the slow motion and bullet time. Stop time to avoid some traps, disarm enemies or even hide yourself. Reverse time to unstick grenades from you or to even avoid some "inconvenience". Use your imagination and you can easily exterminate a large group of enemies in seconds and they will barely notice who kill them or what happened.
The weapons have a nice concept and all shoot nice, with nice sounds and great impact. Also, almost all of them have a secondary fire mode, making them very versatile and useful in many situations, mainly because you can only carry three weapons at a time.
Action is what don't miss here and when you mix the great arsenal, time control abilities more the visual effects and great animation and relative good AI, it's fun - without doubts. Bullets will make a lot of blood fly from your enemies, grenades make them in pieces - with more blood, stop time and take out the weapon from some enemy and see his reaction, stop time to hide from an overwhelming situation. All this are examples of many moments that Timeshift can provide to the player. Also, the player will usually find supplies of ammo around the levels, making the action unstoppable sometimes. I see the puzzles here like "moments for breath" and preparation for the "next session" of uninterrupted action.
Graphically, Timeshift make very beautiful and will not disappoint in any aspect. Since Doom 3, I didn't see a game that uses a superb light and shadows. Everything cast shadow and any source of light WILL generate shadow without kill or even interfere in the performance. Textures are amazing and clear; smoke effects are amazing good; characters have a nice concept and a natural animation; blood looks real blood and the rain is simply the best rain of all times.
Music will help to keep the immersion, even being a song that will not catch your attention, like "Whoa! Hear this song! Cool!!". The same thing for the sound effects, that just seems perfectly mixed with the graphics.
Even being a mindless shooter, where you just have to follow straight orders and kill and destroy anything in your path using a vast arsenal while you control time, it's exactly this uninterrupted action that makes Timeshift so good and is what exactly will catch your attention for it until the point that the history will be irrelevant for the player.
OBS: I didn't have the opportunity to test the multiplayer.
*Other positive points:
- voices;
- decent time length;
- vehicles;
- huge levels.
*Some negative points:
- the level design could be a little better, being confuse sometimes or with lack of some more details;
- the final can be frustrating - more than the lack of history;
- easy puzzles.