TimeShift (Development History)

A small developer named Saber Interactive released a game called Will Rock in 2003. Shortly after this release they created a tech demo of a FPS featuring time manipulation gameplay mechanics. They fished around and eventually Atari took the bait. TimeShift was thus created, and the game got wide press coverage. Dennis Quaid was voice-cast as the hero while Michael Ironside was to voice the villain. The game was initially going to be released on Xbox and PC. As development dragged on the Xbox release was dropped in favor of Xbox360.

The development dragged on and Atari was starting to have financial troubles (although the development of TimeShift was just one of many wounds Atari was bleeding from). They became desperate for launching a big FPS that could turn into a multi-game franchise. At this time TimeShift saw a rather large re-design. The voice actors were dropped and the game was to become less cartoony and more gritty and grounded in reality. Things were looking good and in December 2005 a closed beta was launched to a certain few loyal members of the Atari forums. The beta contained 7 of the levels of the final game. In early 2006 a demo with another level was released to the public. The game was to launch in April and everything was looking good. Pre-order material was sent to a select few game shop chains around the world. But then suddenly Atari went silent.

The money problem had become so severe at Atari that they decided to sell TimeShift to Sierra in the last minute. As Saber was ironing out the last few bugs on the Xbox360 version and was ready to send it off to print Sierra pulled the plug on the release. They saw potential in the game but thought that it needed more development time and thus it was given another year. Saber had basically been in crunch time for almost a couple of years and were already tired. They rolled up their sleaves like proper heroes though and gave it their best. The challenge however was that Sierra demanded the game to be releases on PS3 as well.

Yet another redesign saw the hero of the game become a silent protagonist. Most character interaction (cutscenes) were removed. The story was butchered into incoherent idiocy and the last levels of the game got ditched. Instead the main villain pops up after you kill what were supposed to be a mid-game boss and the game abruptly ends. On the upside though the levels were more focused, the puzzles more streamlined and the graphics got a major boost. The game is still quite fun to play and you can hardly blame the developer for losing focus on the story after two major redesigns and almost three years of crunchtime.

Full playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dISuPZq4JOE&list=PLPgiqPYvvrcEH2io8KayFGvWKg795G6No

 

the opening calibration made me think of halo

 

Funny you should say that, Sabre later went on to make Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary

 

Thanks for all of this! Timeshift is a very variable game, as the timeshift mechanics are great, the levels can be very atmospheric, some of the weapons are great, and when the game is good it can be very good. On the minus side, the story is, as you say, unbelievably butchered and extremely badly told (I've completed the game several times, and still can't tell you the story ending, or the names of most of the (few)people who are story relevant, for example*), some levels are boring and/or go on for too long, and the environmental/object problems you have to solve with the timeshift mechanics feel very contrived, so that you feel aware that the problems were made deliberately to be solved with your suit powers, and not as a natural part of the game's world.

On the plus side, again, though, the timeshift mechanics are great (though I wish they lasted longer), and the game does a great job of showing them working, even down the pause/slow down/reversing of the rain. The storm effects in Timeshif are great.

My biggest regret about Timeshift (and BIoshock 1 and 2, BTW) is that the modding tools were never released. Modders could have done amazing things with with Timeshift's timeshift abilities, but unfortunately they were never given a chance. I still play through the game occasionally, and it would have been fantastic to have been able to play it modded.

Is the seven level closed beta available for download (I mean the PC version, my XBox 360 isn't modded), as it would be really nice to play it?




* And regarding the story in the finished game, is there ever any explanation as to how all of the rebels trust you implicitly, even though to them you're a man in a strange robotic suit that even covers your face. Being rebels who are fighting a murderous, very well armed and morally bankrupt authority, you'd think that the rebels would be paranoid about anyone they didn't know (and with good reason), yet they all accept you on sight as being someone who's not only no danger to them, but also someone who should be trusted with their knowledge and on their missions.

 

Is this the beta?

File: https://mega.co.nz/#!soEwQQDS!GxNfDKa_rzZ_kPmqaseOvOTGd29pNeTcmhJeVp5gZNM

Source: http://www.betaarchive.com/forum/se...t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

 

I played TimeShift for University research many years ago, and it was the most blatant Half-Life 2 rip-off I've seen.

From the dystopian, controlled world, to the monitors showing propaganda speeches, to the silent scientist protagonist, all the way through to the go-kart levels and even the ending where time stops mid sentence.

 

The beta includes all(?) of the cutscenes from the game but I have currently only uploaded gameplay from the levels. If I'm not mistaken you meet up with the woman who sends you back in time (the one in the training mission). I don't know the details but she is somehow involved in the rebellion and that is how you get involved with them. In the main game that woman is simply cut out of the game, thus there is no explanation.

Yes. It is an absolute hell to get it to run though. I had to run it on a Windows XP emulation in VMWare.

Absolutely, I got a HL2 wibe as well. I think the voice actor for Dr. Krone (main villain on the monitors) sounds extremely close to Dr. Kleiner from HL2. Judge for yourself:

Background voice in whole level:
Kleiner speeches (not my vid):

 

Thanks, I'll be interested to see it.

I'm so glad you said that - I've tried to run it on my Windows 7 64 bit desktop, with no success, and you've saved me a lot of time and effort, I'll just run it in XP in VMWare!

Yes, but that in itself doesn't detract from from the game, as Timeshift still feels different to HL2. Singularity is a fantastic game, for example, even though it feels like someone mixed Half-Life 2 and Bioshock, and added a bit of 1960's cold war into the recipe.

 

Multitasker, can you tell me the details of how you got the game to work with VMWare, please?

I'm using VMWare Workstation 12 Player (free version), with Windows XP SP3, and the Timeshift beta installs fine, but when I try to run the game (by clicking on the icon), I get the message "This application cannot run with an active debugger in memory. Please unload the debugger and restart the application".

I wish Windows would tell you what the name of the program is when that program stops a game or other program from working.

 

Ah yes, forgot about that. Uou need a modified exe. I'll get you a link although I am currently at work so it will have to wait.

 

Thanks.

 

I was able to get the original TimeShift demo working on Windows 10 64-bit by using the latest dgVoodoo 2. Even though the demo readme says it requires DirectX 9, the dgVoodoo DirectX 8 seems to do the trick. It runs really smooth and looks great.

When I try to run the beta, I get ActiveMARK drm asking for an activation code. MultiTasker, does your modified .exe get around that? That would be amazing. I'd love to get a link, too.

 

subscribers to OXM received issue 49/Xmas 2005's Extended Play newsletter with a full page interview with Kyle Perchel, Timeshares producer.

regarding the Xbox version, he said it was visually different, but still extremely impressive for an Xbox game.They had to pull some elements to make it fit into the Xbox memory and it was the ability you rewind time for 13 seconds and thus the game needed to remember everything you'd done, everything that had happened, it really effected performance on the Xbox.

Think it was month after telling OXM how pleased they were with the Xbox version, they annouced it had been canned. :'(

 

The time mechanic was reworked a few times because of that exact limitation. At one point you could only rewind time at certain places. The 360 version was announced while the game was already planned for PC and Xbox (press release from Atari was in late august 2005). The Xbox version was then later silently removed from Ataris website. Here are the screens from that very press release: http://www.gamereactor.no/images/?textid=99969&id=75789. Notice the old triangle TimeShift logo.



What I find really interesting is how they solved the PS3 port. They had been working really hard trying to port the game but ran into lots of trouble. The process also took way to much resources so they ended up putting one guy in charge of the port while they focused on the PC and 360 versions. Miracelously enough that guy ported most of the game himself.

 

Thanks for the dgVoodoo tip. Demo works great now.

 

Sorry for bumping this topic, but...

I can't believe, someone found and uploaded the TimeShift Beta. I loved this game and whenever news and media poped up, I was hyped and sometimes wondered, why the game changed so much.

I'm downloading the Beta right now, including dgVoodoo 2 (thank you for the information and link, closer1000).

Can anyone send me a link to the modified EXE to be able to run the game? That would be awesome

Cheers,

Maxunit

 

Sorry, Multitasker asked me not to distribute it (I don't know why). Send him a pm to ask him for it, no doubt he'll send it to you.

 

Yeah, he sent it to me after I messaged him. Problem was: I couldn't get it to launch even with the modified exe. Conker2012, were you successful in getting it going?

 

The MultiTasker account was an account I created after I forgot I had this account. Instead of continue using it I started using this instead. Anyway, as for the file in question do what you want with it. Mine is backed up and no longer easily accessible.

 

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