TimeShift

Been there, shot that. Worth: $5
based on the 360 demo: August 2007

The demo looks great, handles smoothly, and has cool time-warping gameplay. But I won't buy this game until it's in the Cheap-O Bin two years from now.

Maybe it's because I've been playing shooters since 1993, but these games are worthless to me: Pariah, Prey, Shadowrun, Call Of Juarez, Half-Life, Far Cry, Call of Duty (all), Project Snowblind, Perfect Dark Zero, Lost Planet, Battlefield, and Unreal Whatever. If you aren't a crusty old windbag like me, you'll think these are great because you didn't play them back when they were called Doom (1993), Marathon (1994), Quake (1996), Unreal (1998), and the original Medal Of Honor (1999).

Newer shooters that I've enjoyed all seem to offer something fresh and unique. This pile includes: Gears of War, Brute Force, Brothers In Arms, XIII, Ghost Recon, Conflict: OGT, Mercenaries, and of course Halo.

UPDATE (Sep 18, 2007): The GameStoreGuys talked me into giving CoD2 another look. I've realized what I disliked about this series is that you have to play like my buddy Arth. He's a kick-down-the-door kind of guy. I'm more of a sneak-around-and-snipe kind of guy. My experience with CoD is that it punishes you for playing like me and rewards you for playing like Arth. I'm giving CoD2 a try this week and I'll see how it goes playing like Arth instead of me.

From playing the CoD2 demo I can certainly vouch for a great-feeling and looking game. It's just that it has that damn CoD Infinite Spawn Closet which keeps pumping out the baddies until you move up and occupy their post. I'll write a full review once I finish the game.