TIMESHIFT
Sierra UK
You're just about to get a parking ticket. So you pause time, grab the ticket,
rip it up, give the traffic warden a friendly kick on the shin and drive off
into the sunset. What a beautiful thing. This is the kind of time bending shenanigans
you can get up to with Timeshift - only with soldiers instead of innocent traffic
wardens. It’s a fairly standard first-person-shooter but with the added
novelty of being able to slow down, pause and reverse time in the world around
you. It’s really well done and good fun. You can be completely outnumbered
by enemies but by using your time fiddling abilities can even the odds - shooting
hand grenades out of the air, sneaking up behind enemies and reviving dead
comrades. It’s all a bit generic looking but it is pretty and generally
the world has a really solid feel to it. And the time shifting ability is brilliantly
done and lifts this above the ranks of just another shooter.
HELLGATE LONDON
Electronic Arts
Cardiff's by no means perfect as a capital city but it’s heaven on earth
when compared to the dirty, polluted dump that is London. Fittingly, the English
capital is the location of choice for a game which depicts a living hell. Hellgate
London is a role playing game set in a 2038 version of the city which has been
devastated by evil demon thingies. It doesn’t look too much different
from modern day London - lots of dereliction and hostile, aggressive residents.
It’s all fairly conventional. You choose a character type and then develop
their abilities by carrying out quests, slaughtering monsters and collecting
goodies. Despite being set in London you don’t see that much of it. Most
of the action happens in dungeon-like underground tunnels. It’s nothing
special. What it does have though is that naggingly addictive quality of role-playing-games
and the consumerist desire to hoard goodies and get that weapon which is one
better than the last one.
Tom Law lives in a parallel universe