You by no means fairly know what you are going to discover on the opposite aspect once you step via the stargate, and when it got here to Stargate: Timekeepers, I definitely wasn’t anticipating a really competent stealth ways sport. All the identical, slinking throughout various alien worlds and organising nicely-timed tactical ambushes ended up feeling like a pure match for the varieties of finances-constrained capers SG-1 acquired as much as in earlier seasons of the present. The story is not something to report again to command about, however the vibes and presentation hit the spot.
Timekeepers positively takes its cues from the Stargate: SG-1 tv present – although it focuses on a totally new workforce of quippy characters. The marginally campy tone is pleasantly paying homage to an period earlier than status TV, when issues had been a bit much less grim and severe and also you may see United States Air Power officers knocking out alien troopers and tying them up with ropes. On the similar time, it would not come off as overly goofy or comedic, placing what I discovered to be a superb stability.
The quick-paced plot is about in the identical universe as SG-1 and Atlantis, choosing up through the seventh season’s climactic Battle of Antarctica, earlier than following a parallel journey fully new to Timekeepers. Therein lies a little bit of an issue, although. If you do not know something about Stargate lore, the writers are mainly hurling you off a cliff. There is no effort made to clarify what Stargate Command does, who the Jaffa or the Goa’uld are, or why Earth is at present at warfare with somebody named Anubis. I needed to go wiki diving to recollect what was occurring at this level, and I’ve seen the entire sequence a number of occasions – granted, it has been greater than 10 years since my final rewatch. It appears supposed for current SG-1 followers solely.
The workforce I assembled throughout Timekeepers’ seven preliminary missions – the primary half of what’s deliberate to be a 14-episode “season,” with the second half coming later this yr – is made up of troopers and misfits who’re a bit two-dimensional of their portrayal, however endearing sufficient. Every deployment can take anyplace from 45 minutes to some hours, relying closely on how cautious or aggressive I needed to be. Our intrepid chief is Retailer Model Samantha Carter: Colonel Eva McCain. No, I imply actually – from look to persona, it appears virtually like this character initially was supposed to be Amanda Tapping’s Colonel Carter from the TV present. At the least, they’re positively lower from the identical fabric. Not that I thoughts that an excessive amount of.
We even have the too-cool-for-college sniper Max Bolton, a insurgent Jaffa named A’ta who comes together with her very personal “Certainly,” and the nervous, quirky scientist Derrick Harper. The best way they play off one another in dialogue is not particularly impactful, however how their abilities mesh collectively definitely may be. Timekeepers jogs my memory, greater than something, of now-defunct studio Mimimi’s wonderful Shadow Techniques and Shadow Gambit video games. Every space is a fragile knot of enemy imaginative and prescient cones and nicely-positioned obstacles that I liked choosing other than the perimeters utilizing every character’s skills together.
Most areas may be approached with a variety of playstyles. Eva is especially good at a run-and-gun doctrine, clearing out complete squads with an thrilling barrage of grenades and rifle fireplace. Restricted ammo and the danger of alerting different close by enemies meant I needed to rigorously take into account when to go full commando, although. Alien knowledgeable Sam Watson, on the alternative finish of the spectrum, can disguise himself as a Jaffa and even communicate their language, retaining guards distracted with small speak whereas the others slip by. This mechanic is particularly attention-grabbing as solely enemies of decrease rank shall be fooled, so missions with Sam usually revolve round on the lookout for extra senior warriors you may isolate and knock out to improve your disguise.
The useful Tactical Mode makes it simpler to coordinate a number of characters. I discovered the flexibility to subject a number of orders and robotically sync them to occur on the similar time particularly helpful, as an illustration, when it’s worthwhile to knock out two guards with out both of them noticing. I used to be a bit disenchanted there is no motion queue, nevertheless – although you may inform a personality to maneuver to a particular spot earlier than utilizing a capability. Choosing a number of characters may also be a little bit of a ache, particularly if they don’t seem to be standing shut collectively. I’d have killed for a Ctrl + A command to pick all my items like in an RTS, or the flexibility to carry Shift when hitting the F1 – F5 keys so as to add a squadmate to my current choice, as an alternative of biking via them one after the other.
Additionally, for all the liberty of playstyle it provides, Timekeepers would not actually reward stealth or nonviolence in any notably impactful methods. There are deadly and nonlethal assaults, and for the primary few missions I attempted to solely use nonlethal ones. The Jaffa are simply brainwashed people, in any case. However I used to be by no means even verbally recommended for doing so, a lot much less given any type of mechanical reward. Choices in a single episode do not appear to hold over to the following.
And whereas you’ll be instructed what number of alarms you triggered on the finish of a mission, there is not even any type of medal or S-rank for going undetected. The one causes to make use of stealth and nonlethal choices in any respect, it appears, are to maintain from alerting sure enemies who can name reinforcements – which is able to make the entire stage more durable – and the truth that ammo and grenades are a restricted useful resource.
Timekeepers would not look half unhealthy, all issues thought of. The portraits, character fashions, and particle results aren’t particularly trendy or detailed. However every stage options wealthy and attention-grabbing alien environments, from a starlit forest settlement to an historical jungle temple, with loads of character to maintain issues from feeling repetitive. The extent design additionally offered a satisfying problem curve, including in new parts, like patrolling drones, at a gradual tempo and at all times making me assume on my ft to adapt to the state of affairs.
I additionally actually favored the mission intros, that are formatted just like the “Beforehand on…” recaps from the TV present. A few them lower off awkwardly and look like they could be lacking some animations that had been meant to transition seamlessly right into a stage. But it surely’s a pleasant contact. I really feel like I am enjoying via an episode of SG-1, and that is a welcome expertise for me. I even have to present a nod to the clear, readable UI and dialogue subtitles. The loading screens even present coordinates being dialed in on the stargate, which is fairly neat.
Issues can go a bit sideways generally, although. In a single mission, a patrolling enemy randomly discovered a physique I had hidden one thing like half-hour in the past and alerted all of his pals to come back search for me. However we might already left the world fully, so that they had been simply operating round randomly in a panic, bunching up on ladders, and fully breaking every-different’s AI and animations. What makes this worse is you can’t save your sport if there are any enemies alerted anyplace on the map. So I simply needed to hit quick-ahead – an important function for rushing up patrol cycles, and coping with nonsense like this – and look ahead to them to settle down and return to their posts.