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LATEST UPDATE  YouTube (Polsy) Blip If you enjoy explosive combat, this is the chapter for you! We get to try out a very satisfying missile launcher. ---------------------------- Dr. Aiden Krone has made a time jump across the space-time continuum - a reckless act with frightening consequences. Now, a disturbing alternate reality has evolved within the bleak and rain-soaked Alpha District. Armed with the experimental Beta Suit, you alone are able to slow, stop and reverse the flow of time. Only with this ability can you lead the uprising to victory and put an end to Krone's madness. MASTER TIME TO BECOME THE ULTIMATE WEAPON  TimeShift is a science fiction FPS developed by Saber Interactive. For most of its development TimeShift had an unusual Steampunk aesthetic, a complicated storyline about changing history, and heroes and villains voiced by Hollywood stars. Then Atari sold the publishing rights to Sierra; the story and unusual art design were thrown out, and what we actually ended up with was Half-Life 2 cross-bred with Halo and Gears of War. Still, TimeShift has impressive graphics (including lots of dynamic lighting and shadows), amusing ragdoll physics, enemies with decent AI and complex animations, and challenging combat intended for experienced gamers that have already played and beaten all the other games that TimeShift rips off. It might have been a commercial success if Sierra hadn't chosen to release it at the same time as BioShock, The Orange Box, Unreal Tournament 3 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Oops! The game's unique selling point is TimeShifting. The Prince of Persia games let you rewind time to undo mistakes, but TimeShift makes you rewind time in order to progress, as most puzzles and obstacles require you to make the world run backwards. Max Payne and FEAR gave the player "enhanced reflexes" that allowed slow motion combat; in TimeShift you and your weapon move and fire at normal speed regardless of your time powers. This allows you to perform feats such as walking on water or through flames, teleporting next to an enemy and shooting him with his own gun, or empting a 30-round magazine into a squad of enemies before they have even managed to raise their weapons. Rather than breaking the game and making things easy, the game is designed with these powers in mind and without them you are no tougher than an average enemy soldier.  Those of you familiar with my LP of Wolfenstien 2009 will know that I like a challenge, going so far as to modify the game when it turned out that Wolfenstein's "Uber Difficulty" setting wasn't tough enough. I will not be needing to do anything like that with TimeShift, in fact I shall be playing the game on the normal/medium "Skilled" difficulty setting. (It is worth noting that the normal mode of the console versions is the easy mode of the PC version, while the PC normal difficulty setting is actually the hard mode on consoles! I guess that is to make up for the fact that a mouse and keyboard allow more precise aiming compared to a console controller.) ----------------------------    YouTube (Polsy) Blip (super high quality)   YouTube (Polsy) Blip (super high quality)   YouTube (Polsy) Blip (super high quality)   YouTube Polsy Blip   YouTube Polsy Blip   YouTube (Polsy) Blip   YouTube (Polsy) Blip   YouTube (Polsy) Blip   YouTube (Polsy) Blip   YouTube (Polsy) Blip   YouTube (Polsy) Blip ----------------------------  (All character info is taken from the game's manual) Dr. Marissa Foster  Dr. Marissa Foster is a beautiful, brilliant student who was one of the first to join Krone's graduate research program. Marissa is Dr. Krone's 'second' within the facility and is largely responsible for the development and advancement of the Beta Suit, as well as the creation and integration of S.S.A.M. Dr. Nathan Tucker  Dr. Nathan Tucker is another colleague on the N.E.X.T2 program. He serves as the conservative voice of reason regarding the serious and unpredictable implications of the programs success. Commander Mason Cooke Commander Mason Cooke is the leader of an anti-Krone underground movement. Because the two of you have a common goal - to find and take down Krone - you join Cooke and his men, known as the Occupants, in their failing struggle against the Krone Magistrate. Dr. Aiden Krone  Dr. Aiden Krone is a former professor of Applied Physics. During his fifteen years, he begrudgingly taught a single graduate-level Statistical Mechanics course between his exhaustive research efforts. The motivation behind his research work was to justify and documents his advancements, and therefore his seemingly endless need for concurrent research grants. It was during this time that he hand-selected a group of his most capable grad students to document his (private) research. The studies branched across multiple fields, including Thermodynamics, Statistical Mechanics, Advanced Propulsion and ultimately Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Electrodynamics (QED). It was secretly dubbed the N.E.X.T2 programme - Next-Gen Engineering for the Exploration of Time Travel. The opus of their collaborative efforts is the Suit. ----------------------------  The Manual posted:The Suit, the first being the Alpha Suit, was originally developed as the device through which a human body can safely take part in the act of Time Jumping or "Jumping" (i.e., time travel) without being killed in the process. During the successful act of Jumping, the suit is the primary object travelling at the speed of light as it passes through any "Bridge" or wormhole (e.g., Einstein-Rosen Bridge). S.S.A.M.  The Manual posted:Along with the inclusion of the Auto-Return System, chief among the many improvements to the Beta Suit was the integration of a prototype Artificial Intelligence program. The Strategic System for Adaptable Metacognition, known affectionately as S2.A.M. or S.S.A.M. is a significant addition to the suit's capabilities.  At the end of the first level (Arrival) S.S.A.M. activates the Auto-Return system to return the player to his own time, but something goes wrong and the Jump fails. Stuck in Krone's alternate timestream, S.S.A.M. adapts the malfunctioning time drive to instead cause localized time distortions. Using the suit’s time powers will deplete the suit’s energy at various rates. Once the energy is depleted, you cannot use the timeshift functions until your power is recharged. There is a finite amount of energy available in the suit, however it will recharge after several seconds when it is not in use. S.S.A.M. can intelligently choose which time power will best aid the player at any given moment, and pressing the TimeShift button will use this selected power. The player also has individual buttons for each time power, allowing you to override S.S.A.M.'s selection and choose any power at will. Time Slow – This function slows down everyone and everything around you for ten seconds. Time Slow does not affect your movements or actions — you will continue to move at normal speed while everything else moves in slow motion. Time Stop – Time Stop allows you to completely stop time for five seconds (from the player's point of view), during which all molecular motion in the world stops — except for what you control. If you kill an opponent during Time Stop, the accumulated force of your gun shots will only be apparent when time resumes. There are some things that can only be done while the world is frozen around you, such as safely walking through fire or electricified areas, or stealing a weapon from an enemy's grasp. Time Reverse – This power allows you to reverse time. While reverse is in effect, you cannot use any weapon or device, take items or interact with opponents in any way without cancelling the effect or breaking the space-time continuum. Time Reverse usually allows you to rewind 5 seconds of time, but during certain scripted sequences and puzzles this is extended to 15 seconds. Rapid Recovery System – The Beta Suit is also outfitted with measures to protect your safety. Via its Rapid Recovery System, any damage taken by the wearer is automatically deflected by the suit’s on-board shielding systems. Although the suit cannot revive you from death, any injuries you sustain will be repaired after taking cover in a safe zone for a few moments.  KM2103 KARBINE     The KM2103 Karbine is an automatic rifle with an under-mounted grenade launcher, and it is the standard weapon used by the majority of the enemies in the game. It has a modern/futuristic appearance, but the rifle's thirty-round magazine is located on the side, which is reminiscent of some World War 2 weapons. Another unusual feature is that the grenade launcher has its own magazine that holds two grenades, and you can carry two more grenades in reserve. Karbine grenades usually detonate on impact but you can delay the explosion by keeping the alt-fire button pressed; this allows you to bounce grenades around corners or put them into the path of enemies and use them like mines. In the original 2006 version of the game this weapon was known as the Stalker Rifle and it had a very complex Steampunk-inspired design. The Karbine has a high rate of fire and decent accuracy, but inflicts a low amount of damage per bullet; it functions more like the Half-Life submachine gun rather than the powerful assault rifles depicted in most videogames. Enemies wear bulky body armour and it appears that Karbine bullets are not designed to penetrate it. (I guess Krone wanted his forces to have a weapon that was effective at oppressing civilian masses but ineffective if captured by rebels.) It can often take half a magazine to take down a single enemy. Of course your time powers turn enemies into sitting ducks, giving you the time you need to thoroughly riddle them with bullets. When fighting without time powers the best option is to use the grenade launcher. Every Karbine you pick up will give you one or two grenades. KM-33     The KM-33 is a select-fire pistol that can be fired in either single shots or four-round bursts. It has an LED ammo counter on the side and a large 16-round sickle-shaped magazine that gives it a very distinctive appearance. In the old 2006 version of the game the weapon was called the Knuckleduster and the magazine had spikes on it! The KM-33's bullets are more than twice as powerful as the Karbine; presumably they have some armour-piercing capability, like the real life FN Five-seven pistol. The single shot mode is very accurate and good for picking off distant enemies, but it has a slow rate of fire. The burst-fire mode can be devastating, but it burns through ammo quickly and has very high recoil which limits its effective range. This means that the pistol is decent at short range and long range but outperformed by the Karbine at medium range. Shattergun     A full-auto double-barrelled combat shotgun. It has a tighter spread than most videogame shotguns and the primary single-barrelled firing mode has a rapid rate of fire. It holds 8 shotgun shells and needs to be reloaded one shell at a time, though you can interrupt the reload. The original 2006 version of this weapon was known as the Gearmaster, and its automatic firing mechanism appeared to use some sort of clockwork. The effectiveness of the Shattergun can sometimes be a bit random; it can take down a Krone Police corporal in one shot if the pellets hit his chest or face, but there's a fair chance that instead you'll hit his limbs, gun or bullet-proof helmet and need an extra shot or two. It is quite common for an enemy to survive a Shattergun blast but for him to be disarmed in the process, making him an easy target until he can reclaim his weapon. The double-barrelled alternate fire is deadlier but has a slower rate of fire and uses up ammo twice as quickly. It also inflicts twice as much physical force; it can often be fun to use Time Stop and unnecessarily fire several double-barrelled blasts at someone just to see them fly through the air once the laws of physics return. Clutch Grenade   Clutch Grenades are timed hand grenades that adhere to humanoid targets using glowing blue electromagnetism, electrocuting the target until detonation. The blast radius is significant and capable of killing several enemies simultaneously. Once a Clutch Grenade sticks to to a person, nothing will get it off. If the grenade does not hit a humanoid target then it will bounce and roll like a conventional hand grenade, and detonate after a few seconds. However Clutch Grenades do not lose their sticking ability after hitting the ground; in a firefight it is possible for someone to accidentally run into or fall onto a Clutch Grenade and doom themselves. At first it is easy to mistake these glowing blue sticky grenades as being identical to Halo's plasma grenades, but the fact that TimeShift's version cause electrocution before detonation makes them more effective (as it immediately takes the victim out of the fight) as well as being darkly amusing. Some enemies will flail their arms in desperation, others will be sent into spasms by the electric shock. Clutch Grenades are usually found in grenade packs that are carried by random enemies; the packs are actually visible on their uniform and fall off when they are killed. Enemies will start to throw Clutch Grenades at you from the third level onwards, and they have excellent aim. If they can see you, they are likely to stick you, and if you are behind cover the grenade will probably land dangerously close to your position. Although Clutch Grenades spell inevitable doom for your enemies, it is possible to avert the same fate yourself if you are able to quickly activate Time Reverse. Echo Rifle    A semi-automatic sniper rifle with a four-round magazine and a variable zoom scope (up to 9x). The Echo Rifle is one of the few weapons that appears to be identical to its appearance in the old cancelled Steampunk version of the game. I've included an image of the silver version that was supposed to appear in the redesigned game but I guess it was decided that the old version was more interesting and still modern/futuristic enough; the one giveaway that it is an old design is the cable that is rather low-poly. The red laser beam is supposedly used by a built-in digital stabilization system to compensate for human quiver while aiming. This nicely justifies the old skool Unreal-style sniping and the lack of annoying modern mechanics like the view wavering or needing to hold your breath. More importantly, the laser allows the player to accurately shoot from the hip rather than being forced to use the scope. (Fortunately enemies do not notice your laser dot; perhaps the beam is infra-red but made visible by your suit's visor?) The Echo Rifle fires incredibly powerful hollow-point rounds that can pierce enemy helmets, so a headshot is always an instant kill. The tough body armour of Krone Guards means that they take two shots to the chest to kill, but the first will stagger them and will often cause them to fall over, making them easy targets for your second shot. When used by enemies, two shots will usually kill you unless you have completely full health/armour in which case you will be reduced to 1% health. (In the hard Elite difficulty setting the second shot is always fatal.) ThunderBolt     Known as the Krossbow in earlier versions of the game, the ThunderBolt shoots projectiles that penetrate an opponent's armour and detonate after a short time, blasting them into a gory mess. It has a scope attachment for long-range accuracy, though the explosive bolts travel slower than bullets and are likely to miss moving targets at long distances. At short and medium ranges the enemies do not stand a chance, and if combined with Time Slow or Time Stop it becomes a great sniper weapon. For many players the ThunderBolt will become their primary weapon for the rest of the game. One shot is fatal to even heavily-armoured enemies, it has a decent rate of fire and a surprisingly large magazine size of 10 crossbow bolts, allowing it to replace the Karbine and ShatterGun, and the sniper scope makes it an effective replacement for the Echo Rifle as well. Although there is a brief delay between the bolt hitting its target and detonating, enemies will usually be stunned by the impact and so they are instantly removed as threats even before the explosion. It would tempting to criticise the Thunderbolt crossbow as making the game too easy, if not for the fact that you acquire it once you are fighting large squads of Krone Guards and Jetpack Soldiers that are both tough and dangerous, and you'll be grateful for any edge you can get over the opposition. The ThunderBolt is commonly carried by Krone Guards from the 9th chapter onwards so ammo is plentiful. Being hit by an enemy ThunderBolt will knock 1/6 off your health meter, but they are likely to miss you at long range as enemies lack your time abilities. Bloodhound    This shoulder-mounted rocket/missile launcher causes massive damage, and has a large blast radius. The launcher can be fired four times before needing a reload, you can three additional magazines, and you can restock endlessly from any ammo crate, so it appears the developers wanted to encourage rocket launcher rampages rather than have you save it for special occasions. The Bloodhound gets its name from its guided fire mode, activated by bringing up a targeting screen that has a small amount of zoom. Missiles will follow the laser sight/targeting reticule, allowing you to track moving targets or guide missiles over obstacles. It is similar to Half-Life's laser-guided RPG, except for the fact that the Bloodhound requires you to use a zoomed-in screen, making you a bit less mobile and aware of your surroundings. The guided fire mode is very effective at long range or when slowing time, but impractical in real-time run-and-gun situations. ----------------------------  In TimeShift there are no zombies or aliens or monsters from another dimension; all enemies are part of the totalitarian Krone Magistrate. At first the player is up against Krone Police officers while in later levels they are mostly replaced by military Krone Guards. Enemies are very mobile and have complex animations; they vault over objects, fire while moving from cover to cover, roll to avoid gunfire or grenades, and occasionally they will charge in an attempt to do a surprise melee attack. They are very aggressive and will often attempt to overrun you so that your health/armour does not have time to regenerate. Other times they will use squad tactics such as having some soldiers stay back and provide suppressing fire while others flank you or advance on your position. Krone's troops wear body armour that actually works, making them significantly more durable than most videogame mooks. They take reduced damage if shot in the limbs. Headshots are instantly lethal but most enemies are protected by helmets, and it takes about three Karbine bullets to knock off a helmet. Shooting an opponent in the face or neck still guarantees an instant-kill headshot, although some enemies also have facemasks or armour protecting their necks. TimeShift has tough enemies but avoids "bullet sponge" syndrome by having the enemies respond to your gunfire rather than shrugging it off; leg shots can cause enemies to fall to their knees while a shot to the chest might knock someone flat on his back. You can also shoot a weapon out of an enemy's hands, or steal it from him while time is stopped. KRONE POLICE Krone Police Corporal: Wears grey-white armour vest, elbow pads, knee pads, over a blue uniform Krone Police Sergeant: Wears grey-white full body armour (shoulder pads, elbow pads, thigh pads, knee pads, armour vest with additional angled chest plate, neck-protector and groin-protector), over a blue uniform Two heavily armoured Krone Police Sergeants (left) and a Krone Police Corporal (right)  Click here for the full 1280x693 image Krone Police are the standard enemies for the first 6 levels of the game. They are not to be underestimated; despite being the first enemies in the game they are as tough and dangerous as soldiers encountered in the middle of games such as Half-Life and FEAR. Squads of Corporals are sometimes led by Sergeants that wear more armour and tend to have more advanced tactics. From the third level onwards they will start to use grenades and from the fourth level onwards they will occasionally launch Karbine grenades at you. SENTRY  Click here for the full 1280x693 image Sentries are enormous mechs driven by human pilots. Each arm is equipped with a powerful machinegun and a rocket launcher, while the chest region has a searchlight for scanning dark areas. HELO  Click here for the full 1494x809 image Helos are futuristic helicopter gunships with turbines for wings, armed with a nose-mounted machinegun. They are tough, powerful and very manoeuvrable. PROWLER (TANK)  Click here for the full 1280x693 image Prowlers are tanks armed with a 130cm cannon and a dual-barrel machinegun turret. One can first be seen driving down a street a knocking down lamposts in the first level, and inactive Prowlers are parked in enemy bases throughout the game. The only one that attacks you is towards the end of the third level, New Blood. Technically it is possible to destroy the tank using the heavy machingun turret in the park, but this is difficult, dangerous, and also quite slow and tedious, and there is no benefit to doing so other than a sense of personal satisfaction. It makes far more sense to simply use time powers to escape. SENTINEL  Click here for the full 1280x693 image The Sentinel is Krone's giant mobile fortress. It walks on four spider-like legs, and is armed with lightning death ray cannons! (Technically, it is armed with three huge plasma turrets mounted on top, and a massive plasma cannon on the underbelly. It can also do artillery barrages using a number of missiles launchers.) KRONE GUARDS  Click here for the full 1280x693 image Krone Guards are the standard infantry of the Krone Magistrate. They wear green full body armour over a blue uniform. They are introduced on the 7th level Getaway, and become the main enemies for the rest of the game. Their military green body armour allows them to withstand almost twice as much damage as the Krone Police, and they have access to a much wider selection of weapons. Even those armed with the standard Karbine cannot be underestimated as they often use the grenade launcher. As the game progresses variants are introduced that wear especially bulky torso armour covered in wires, as well as thigh armour pads. These "heavy" Krone Guards are tough enough to survive a direct hit from the Karbine's grenade launcher, so when they appear it is time to start looking for some new weapons. JETPACK SOLDIERS  Click here for the full 1280x693 image A special variant of Krone Guard equipped with a jetpack, flight goggles and an oxygen mask. When they spot an enemy they take to their air, allowing them to shoot you from above even if you try to take cover. They usually float slowly with a blue flame, but when attacked they will quickly dodge with a burst of yellow flame. They are not quite as tough as conventional Krone Guards (perhaps to compensate for being difficult to hit) but they can still take much more punishment than Krone Police. When killed they fall from the sky and explode on impact.  UNLOCKABLES 1-6 YouTube Polsy       UNLOCKABLES 7-12 YouTube Polsy (To read the small writing put it into 1080p resolution and view full-screen.)     UNLOCKABLES 13 - 18 YouTube Polsy       UNLOCKABLES 19-24 YouTube Polsy   
your evil twin fucked around with this message at Apr 20, 2013 around 18:47 |
| # ? Jan 11, 2013 23:38 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 01:43 |
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  YouTube (Polsy) Blip (super high quality) Here I give some background info and show footage of the old cancelled version of the game, delve into the options menu and play the opening cutscene. -----------------------------   YouTube (Polsy) Blip (super high quality) On the hunt to find our betrayer, Dr. Krone, we have arrived within his alternate timestream... your evil twin fucked around with this message at Jan 22, 2013 around 21:50 |
| # ? Jan 11, 2013 23:38 |
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Saber Interactive haven't released many games, although it went down hill after TimeShift. Which makes it surprising that they used the time mechanics well and the guns give good balance to the game. I haven't played this game in quite some time so I'm looking forward to it.
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| # ? Jan 12, 2013 00:08 |
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I remember this game, some of the weapons had really good concepts and were really well-balanced and introduced in large enough amounts to be worth using. Except the pistol, that sucked.
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| # ? Jan 12, 2013 01:36 |
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 at the robocop reference. That was pretty good.I've never played this game but the development history does sound really interesting from your intro video. That's really too bad they decided to scrap basically all the work they'd done and remake it - seems like a case of DNF. That said, I'm glad they left the time gimmick in because it does look pretty cool, I just hope we get that soon because without it this game looks generic as gently caress. It really needs colour too, badly. During some parts of that first level I'd swear the game is entirely black and white if not for the green on your radar and health bar.
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| # ? Jan 12, 2013 02:51 |
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We'll have time powers in the very next level, so no need to worry there. And yeah, the first few levels are very generic and grey and bland. I had been looking forward to the game for years, and then I played the demo of this bleak grey game and it almost put me off getting it. Fortunately the colour palette improves as the game progresses and the environments become more interesting than canals and ruined buildings. Sierra told them to scrap what they had made and make everything grey and apocalyptic like Gears of War. It seems that Saber complied with this 100% in the early levels (the ones that would be most shown off to the publisher and in previews and demos etc) but further into the game they figured they could get away with having stuff a bit closer to their original vision. Saber made up for the lack of plot in this game by including literally hours of cutscenes in their next game Inversion. They also got to say a big gently caress you to whoever decided "gamers don't care about saving their imaginary videogame daughter, they just want to kill bad guys" by having the plot of their next game Inversion revolve entirely around trying to save your imaginary videogame daughter. Except that Inversion didn't sell well either... Gideon020 posted:I remember this game, some of the weapons had really good concepts and were really well-balanced and introduced in large enough amounts to be worth using. Except the pistol, that sucked. The pistol doesn't actually suck... but it doesn't really serve much purpose. It's good in particular situations but the Karbine is good enough in most of those same situations, and then shortly afterwards you get other weapons that are obviously more useful. Maybe they should have kept the silly spikes on it from the old steampunk design and had it be an instant-kill melee weapon. your evil twin fucked around with this message at Jan 12, 2013 around 05:57 |
| # ? Jan 12, 2013 05:47 |
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I liked playing the demo of this way back when but I never got the actual game. Be nice to see what looked like a fairly fun game.
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| # ? Jan 12, 2013 06:18 |
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The multiplayer in this game is criminally underrated, I remember playing it a few months after it came out with my friend on the servers and it was pretty much dead, shame really. I'm convinced that this game is like the only one to pull off time slowdown and other shenanigans well in multilayer.
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| # ? Jan 12, 2013 06:31 |
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As I said in the Sandcastle, I find it interesting how they have a sickle clip on a semi-auto pistol... Then I realised the rifle also has a sickle clip, and decided they simply thought sickle clips were cool (they totally are... in terms of looks, anyways). So yeah, Timeshift, another flawed gem. It is a shame how it got hit with the bland-cannon later in its developement, but then we've seen that happen with developer shifts a lot (Cold Fear, anybody?).
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| # ? Jan 12, 2013 15:31 |
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I completely missed the release of this game in the storm of AAA releases and I never got around to playing it. I'll be looking forward to seeing what I missed out on. I know this is a bit early to speculate on future LPs, but will you be LPing Inversion as well?
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| # ? Jan 12, 2013 18:06 |
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I played this a ways back, but wasn't uniformly impressed. I thought the gun-play was lacklustre and the time mechanics, though well done were not introduced or taken full advantage of in-game. There were some comparison videos that they put out that showcased how developed the time powers were. In one, the player caused a barrel to fall, reversed time and rode it elevator style to the shelf it had originally been on. Very cool, but the game didn't present these possibilities to the player as real things to do in general.
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| # ? Jan 12, 2013 23:08 |
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The Character, weapon and enemy sections in the OP have been updated and now have pictures. I hope to have the next video up by the end of the weekend.psivamp posted:There were some comparison videos that they put out that showcased how developed the time powers were. In one, the player caused a barrel to fall, reversed time and rode it elevator style to the shelf it had originally been on. Very cool, but the game didn't present these possibilities to the player as real things to do in general. The developers were rather disappointed in focus tests when they found how dumb many players can be, such as trying to use one time power and forgetting about the other ones. So they gave the suit an artificial intelligence that suggests powers for you, and they scrapped many of the interesting puzzles that they had in the old steampunk version. They still included the extra tactical positions and extra routes that you could discover by using time powers, but the game never actually expects you to use them, they are purely there for those that feel like experimenting. Back in the good old days of Half-Life if you couldn't figure out a puzzle you'd be stuck but you'd feel smart once you figured it out. Unfortunately there are always some people that go "this sucks" and quit without even checking a guide online. Nowadays everyone is supposed to be able to finish a videogame, so they made the puzzles a complete non-issue and just a change of pace to break up the combat. The same thing happend to Raven's game Singularity; they designed about 50 clever puzzles that required your special powers, but in the final game they just use the same 3 or 4 puzzles over and over again, because some focus test determined that gamers just want to shoot things, not solve things. What is cool though is that most of TimeShift's puzzles can actually be solved by using time powers other than the one S.S.A.M. suggests, and the game's readme file actually suggests trying this. There also used to be stealth sections where you were supposed to sneak by enemies; they should have been quite good because (1) failing them didn't cause game over, it just caused you to have to fight more enemies, and (2) if you screwed up and were spotted you could always use time reverse to make it so they hadn't spotted you! You can still do this in some parts of the finished game but it never expects you to do so and doesn't reward you for being stealthy or acknowledge it in any way. I already know a few places I plan to show it off though. KozmoNaut posted:I completely missed the release of this game in the storm of AAA releases and I never got around to playing it. I'll be looking forward to seeing what I missed out on. Sword and Sceptre posted:The multiplayer in this game is criminally underrated, I remember playing it a few months after it came out with my friend on the servers and it was pretty much dead, shame really. I'm convinced that this game is like the only one to pull off time slowdown and other shenanigans well in multilayer. When Activision merged with Sierra/Vivendi they released TimeShift on Steam, but the Steam version of the game is incorrectly patched - it has all the version 1.2 fixes but still uses the version 1.0 exe. So anyone who has the Steam version and wants to play multiplayer has to download a version 1.2 no-cd cracked exe file so they can play multiplayer with people that have the retail version. Unfortunately the Gamespy matchmaking for the game (and the demo) has been shut down. But it is still possible to play LAN games - in the full game or the free demo - using Tunngle and things like that. It's not much fun with 2 players but it's worth playing if you can get 3 or 4 friends to download the multiplayer demo, the two levels included are both pretty good. your evil twin fucked around with this message at Jan 13, 2013 around 05:40 |
| # ? Jan 13, 2013 02:49 |
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your evil twin posted:There are actually a number of places where you can use that trick of riding objects up to high places and I intend to show off as many as I can find. What's cool is some of them allow you to do little bits of "sequence breaking" and skip a part of a level... and the developers intended for that to be a valid solution as they put weapon/ammo pickups on that route. They are few and far between though, I only discovered a couple on my first playthrough. I played it pretty stupidly. There wasn't much indication in-game that there was more to it. I only found the videos after I'd finished playing, so I hadn't thought the powers were that worked out. Puzzles that made you use the powers that way or a quick tutorial of a couple of ways and a gentle shove to look for that stuff would have greatly improved the overall game.
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| # ? Jan 13, 2013 13:52 |
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your evil twin posted:The bland greyness of the demo level almost put me off playing the game, but the multiplayer in the demo was what actually made me decide to buy it. Old-skool deathmatch like Unreal Tournament or Half-Life 1, but with the ability to trap people in bubbles of slowed or frozen time, or use bubbles of reversed time to make people shoot themselves in the head. Marvellous fun. Now I really wish I had gotten this game. Kind of a shame that there are no private diehard servers like some games get.
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| # ? Jan 13, 2013 16:29 |
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Between this, the Haze LP and the references to this here "Inversion" I'm beginning to think that recent history is completely paved with the dusty corpses of forgotten (and I'd imagine often forgettable) FPS games. But I may just be particularly unobservant as I don't remember reading about the recent Wolfenstein either. Also you appear to be a machine, running overlapping LP's. Perhaps Your Evil Triplet is involved... dun dun duuuh
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| # ? Jan 13, 2013 22:36 |
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I have to say, I was one of those dumb players, problem was I was doing a terrible, terrible blind let's play of it. Which by the time I finished it left me with a sour impression of the game and a feeling the pacing was horrible (it wasn't, it just wasn't designed to be played in half an hour bursts over half a year. Who'd have thunk it?  )I look forward to seeing the game done justice, especially with all the research you've put into the background of the game. Which I really wished they'd released because the game it used to be looks and sounds awesome.
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| # ? Jan 14, 2013 00:03 |
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Fwoderwick posted:Between this, the Haze LP and the references to this here "Inversion" I'm beginning to think that recent history is completely paved with the dusty corpses of forgotten (and I'd imagine often forgettable) FPS games. For the most part, you're correct. It's really easy to design an FPS in general because most of the core mechanics are right there on display. However it's really hard to do the level design and story plotting etc so many fall through the cracks for basically being "a shooter with nothing special attached".
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| # ? Jan 14, 2013 00:26 |
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Calax posted:For the most part, you're correct. It's really easy to design an FPS in general because most of the core mechanics are right there on display. However it's really hard to do the level design and story plotting etc so many fall through the cracks for basically being "a shooter with nothing special attached". Very true. It's very easy to play through one of the masterpieces of the genre without even noticing how you're being subtly manipulated into looking at the right things and moving in the right direction. This is one of the reasons why I love Valve so much, simply for putting the Developer Commentary feature into Portal and Half-Life 2. Once you start looking critically at the design choices they made and analysing how they're leading you around, it's like a whole new dimension of the game opens up which you'd never noticed before.
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| # ? Jan 14, 2013 00:51 |
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LP is looking great so far. Games re-using ideas has never been a problem for me. They can still make fun or interesting games and sometimes a developer can give a whole new spin on an old idea.
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| # ? Jan 14, 2013 02:12 |
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Yeah, I tried this game out after I played Singularity. It's... it's got nothing on Singularity in terms of either atmosphere OR gameplay. You may not be able to directly rewind time in Singularity but you get a ton of other neat time-warping powers.
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| # ? Jan 14, 2013 02:19 |
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You'll get no argument from me there. I still like TimeShift (I wouldn't much this much effort into LPing it if I didn't)... but Singularity changes the setting or the enemies or the gameplay every five minutes, it combines Half-Life's Black Mesa facility (which I love) with C&C Red Alert's Soviet superscience (which I love), it has great-looking designs, and a marvellous B-movie time travel story. I'm probably the world's biggest Singularity fan. But there are some things that TimeShift does well, enough for me to have a real blast with it back in 2007. Next episode is currently being uploaded! your evil twin fucked around with this message at Jan 14, 2013 around 22:18 |
| # ? Jan 14, 2013 22:01 |
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  YouTube Polsy Blip (super high quality) Time is on my side, yes it is. UNLOCKABLES 1-6 YouTube Polsy
your evil twin fucked around with this message at Jan 18, 2013 around 04:36 |
| # ? Jan 15, 2013 00:06 |
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I had no idea that you could do that with barrels. I can imagine there to be quite a few cool tricks that could be done now that you have the time rewind mechanics, I just used them to shoot guys in the face a whole lot. But then again I'm un-creative.
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| # ? Jan 15, 2013 00:57 |
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Now we see the real meat of the game. The time powers give us a distinct edge over everyone else and it makes a lot more sense why we're the only one getting poo poo done compared to a lot of other shooters where you're just this one dude who happens to be able to gun his way through an entire army single handedly. Plus they're fun as hell to use. I tended to stick to whatever SSAM thought I should use, but mostly due to how I couldn't remember which button combo used which power. I also love the Shattergun, it's auto fire when combined with stop time or even slow time makes it an absolute beast in enclosed spaces. Provided you can actually find the dudes you're meant to be shooting at anyway.
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| # ? Jan 15, 2013 01:00 |
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I was a big fan of this game, and I'm glad it's being Let's Play-ed: This was the one of the few titles that was readily available when I first activated my membership to GameFly. Unlike a lot of other contemporary titles, it also succeeded in a way that few other FPS's did in making you feel more powerful than anything the game threw at you. It was never easy, but anytime you saw a "Game Over" screen you knew it wasn't BS, that there was always a smarter way to approach whatever situation killed you. I also enjoyed that they never made stealth a mandatory facet of gameplay, but there were opportunities to sneak into the middle of a squad of guys, wait until they spotted you, and then pop Time Stop and execute them all with the Shattergun. They way they'd all collapse when normal time resumed was a thing of beauty.
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| # ? Jan 15, 2013 02:32 |
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I'd like to mention a nice little insignificant detail I like about this game, which is how the crosshair turns white when an enemy dies. It's especially great when you've stopped time and you need to know when to stop shooting.
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| # ? Jan 15, 2013 02:45 |
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Do all your time powers use up your time juice at the same rate? It seems like pausing things is a lot more energy-intensive.
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| # ? Jan 16, 2013 01:57 |
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I was kind of wondering that too. Mostly wondering if reverse time lasts for a set amount of time (say you can only reverse the last 3 seconds) or if it's based on how much power you have. Also if this game has cheat codes or if you would have to mod values to cheat in it. I am curious if you could cheat/mod in infinite time power and then let reverse time go on for minutes at a time, effectively restarting a whole level  that would be sweet. I have a feeling it's not possible though.This game went from boring generic poo poo to pretty loving  once you got the time powers. It looks really fun now.
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| # ? Jan 16, 2013 02:04 |
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All three powers are dependent on your time energy meter, the blue bar in the top left-hand side of the screen. (Beneath it are icons for slow, pause and rewind; the highlighted icon indicated which power SSAM will use if you press the automatic timeshift button rather than choosing one manually.) Time Stop uses up twice as much energy as Time Slow; with full charge you can slow time for 10 seconds, but can only stop time for 5 seconds. If you are injured, activating Time Stop causes your health/shield to start refilling straight away. For this reason if you have low health and press the automatic timeshift button then SSAM will usually choose Time Stop; you get to do some serious arse-kicking for 5 seconds AND you come out of it with full health, ready to do some more arse-kicking in normal time. Time Reverse normally uses up your energy in 5 seconds, the same as Time Stop, but sometimes it will last as long as 15 seconds during puzzles and scripted sequences where you are supposed to use time reverse. (Sequences like the Sentry mech collapsing that walkway between buildings would be far less impressive if it had lasted under 5 seconds!) Back in the old 2006 steampunk version of the game time reverse always worked for 15 seconds; it's a shame they didn't keep that as it would allow you to completely undo and retry large firefights... but I guess they got rid of it due to allowing the player to run past most enemies in the game without fighting them! Also you cannot rewind time beyond a point where you have saved the game/loaded the game or used another power. So if you are using time slow you can't immediately switch to time reverse. Also if you screw up a puzzle that needs time reverse you shouldn't reload the game and then immediately try it again as you'll find you can only reverse for one or two seconds, even if it is one of the bits where the game lets you do it for 15 seconds. The game doesn't have cheat codes but there are Trainers you can download that let you cheat and do stuff like infinite health, infinite ammo, and/or infinte time energy. These allow you to use time slow or time stop indefinately, and time reverse up to 15 seconds (that limit seems to be hardcoded into the game, it doesn't actually remember more than 15 seconds). I haven't tried using them myself, but I'm tempted to give them a try, maybe show it off in a bonus video.
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| # ? Jan 16, 2013 04:20 |
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Argh. For some reason, the new video has been blocked by YouTube in Germany... probably some copyright-related stuff. Good thing there's some ways around that. Tereon fucked around with this message at Jan 16, 2013 around 14:46 |
| # ? Jan 16, 2013 13:44 |
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The demo convinced me to put this game on my Amazon wishlist, but reviews kept me from actually buying it, for some reason. You have changed my mind, Y.E.T. God, what am I gonna do... too many games! Anyway, as always, great video, and I'm looking forward to more of your work!
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| # ? Jan 16, 2013 16:41 |
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Tereon posted:Argh. For some reason, the new video has been blocked by YouTube in Germany... probably some copyright-related stuff.
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| # ? Jan 16, 2013 17:12 |
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There are now blip links for the intro and first level. The blip videos have a very high bitrate and so take a long time to buffer. They are intended for graphics/video quality whores who don't mind waiting. If you have the patience (or have high-speed internet) I do recommend them as the rainy parts look much better. Doesn't make much difference for the indoor parts though. Tereon posted:Argh. For some reason, the new video has been blocked by YouTube in Germany... probably some copyright-related stuff. It isn't actually the gameplay that causes the copyright problem, it's the bit at the end where I show off the unlockables, with the first unlocked music track playing in the background; youtube matched that music to the game's official soundtrack. At the moment there's some sort of legal dispute going on in Germany regarding youtube and copyright, so the video is available everywhere else but blocked in Germany, despite neither the music or the game having any German connections. So I used youtube's own editing tools to cut out that part of the video (and uploaded a new video that was just the unlockables)... but it turns out that doesn't actually undo the copyright claim.  So I've now reuploading the video with that part removed. Oh no, all of those precious youtube view and thumbs up "likes" shall be lost!All future updates will have the unlockables in a separate video as well, so if Germany wants to block it they'll just block that part rather than the whole video. your evil twin fucked around with this message at Jan 17, 2013 around 04:25 |
| # ? Jan 16, 2013 22:28 |
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Just an idea, but couldn't you just put screenshots of the unlockable art in the thread as images, instead of in a video? Unlockable music could possibly go in Tindeck links. That would also mean people could look at the art as long as they like. I think I'd actually prefer that.
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| # ? Jan 17, 2013 09:34 |
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Cool, your evil twin, thanks for thinking of us poor Germans. Yeah, there is a pretty ridiculous legal dispute between YouTube and the GEMA (who represent authors's rights for composers and the like). In short, GEMA wants horrendous amounts of money per video view from YouTube "in the name of the artists" which YouTube does not want to pay, even if those artists upload stuff in their own official channels. It's pretty hosed up and I hope it get's sorted out real soon because all of this is taken out on the backs of the regular youtube viewer in Germany. Enough ranting though, after being able to see the video at last, I really dig the time powers and how they are presented (e.g. details like being able to see the raindrops midair). It really adds much to the otherwise pretty generic game and I'm looking forward to other cool stuff you can do, like you did with the barrels.
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| # ? Jan 17, 2013 11:17 |
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No problem Tereon, glad you enjoyed it.  Carbon dioxide posted:Just an idea, but couldn't you just put screenshots of the unlockable art in the thread as images, instead of in a video? Unlockable music could possibly go in Tindeck links. Yeah the thought did occur to me, but I've already recorded videos of most of the unlockables. I'm going to do screenshots of the art as well.  Since the soundtrack for the game is available to buy, I don't want to upload the music to tindeck in case that counts as  , but doing a video of the game itself playing that music is a different matter. Besides, half of the music isn't good enough for anyone to bother listening to it on its own, but it is nice for accompanying the concept art. Whatever music you choose continues to play while you look at the concept art part of the unlockables section (but not if you go back to the main menu) so it seems that was actually the developers' intention.New youtube version of 02 Back Again is now up, copyright problems resolved for the enjoyment of German viewers. New blip version of 01 Arrival is now up, super high quality and with correct brightness. The next couple of episodes have been recorded, look forward to 03 New Blood tomorrow! your evil twin fucked around with this message at Jan 17, 2013 around 11:34 |
| # ? Jan 17, 2013 11:18 |
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  YouTube Polsy Blip Even when fighting a civil war in a schizo-tech dystopia, you should still find time to go to the park and look at butterflies. -------------------------------- (Both the youtube and blip versions actually look pretty similar quality-wise as this time there aren't any rain effects.) your evil twin fucked around with this message at Jan 26, 2013 around 14:32 |
| # ? Jan 18, 2013 01:35 |
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I saw my brother playing this some time ago, and I dismissed it as being another Brown Shooter. I am sorry I missed out on seeing this much detail, and knowing the history behind it makes me feel even worse about it.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 02:04 |
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oh yes oh god yes form the head FORM THE HEAD unghhhh...
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I don't know why but enemies in this game really didn't throw grenades at me and it was really cool to see that even if the grenade sticks to you, you can get them off of you. It's also nice to see that Krone brought improbable physics with him with those "jets".
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 03:33 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 01:43 |
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The "tube map" at 10:20 is very similar to the Washington D.C. "metro," which non-locals may recognize from Fallout 3. 
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| # ? Jan 19, 2013 00:55 |
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