TimeShift

Title
Developer
Publisher
Genre
ESRB Rating
Demo Release Date
Full Release Date
Platforms
Official Website
Demo Download Size
Review Date

TimeShift
Saber Interactive
Sierra
First Person Shooter
Mature
15th November 2007
30th October 2007 Buy Now
PC (Reviewed), PS3, Xbox 360
http://www.timeshiftgame.com
1.2GB
14th July 2008

What did I think before playing?
This wasn't a game I had heard of and just stumbled across the demo while trawling bigdownload.com. I assumed because it was recently added to that site that this must be a relatively new game, so perhaps it came from a tiny developer. I was intrigued because it was a multiplayer enabled demo.

What is included?
A section of a single player map and a multiplayer mode. Unfortunately it seems the multiplayer servers have been switched off at this time.

What did I think afterwards?
This is an interesting one since this is a title that was in development for a long time. The game was released on PC and Xbox 360 at first, (PS3 came later,) on 30th-Oct-07. About three weeks prior to that, 11th-Oct-07, a single player demo was released, as is typical. Two weeks after the retail release an updated version of the demo shipped which added a multiplayer mode, 15th-Nov-07. Perhaps giving the gaming news websites something to print about your game after that initial release period is a good idea, and why not make that something free for the public, (even if it is only a demo)?
Unfortunately that means I was mistaken and this was a title that was old enough to have the multiplayer servers switched off already, (at least for the demo,) so I couldn't sample that piece. That left me with the single player which was a snippet from an opening level, I assume. The graphical style and gameplay reminded me a lot of F.E.A.R., a game which was also published by Sierra but two years earlier. I really enjoyed that game and was sold on the demo of it, but TimeShift didn't have quite the same magic. The level you played through in the F.E.A.R. demo turned out to be an amalgamation of a few different scenes taken from the first hour or so of gameplay, with some interesting scripted sequences and ending by fading to black as a boss battle was about to start. The TimeShift demo had the same feel and ended the same way, but I can't be sure that this wasn't just a straight copy of the opening few minutes.

Would I buy the full game?
Nothing wrong with the demo, but I found the time traveling piece gimmicky which caused the level design to be restrictively linear with the set pieces there just for you to use your powers. So, no I wouldn't buy it.

Demo Pros
Included both single & multiplayer, and revisited a title after release.

Demo Cons
Servers are off now, so I can't test out the multiplayer. To be fair, we are talking about a demo that came out around eight months ago.

Demo Rating 8 / 10

Thoughts after playing the full game?
If I play the full game I will put comments here about whether I feel the demo was representative of the final product and if I am happy with the purchase.

Sales Figures
If I can find sales information about a game after it has been released I'll add that here. It may be useful to track demos to sales performance.