Review: Stargate Timekeepers
Timekeepers clearly draws inspiration from the television series Stargate: SG-1, but it concentrates on an entirely new cast of witty characters. The slightly campy tone is pleasantly reminiscent of a time before prestige TV, when things were a little less gloomy and serious, and you could watch US Air Force commanders taking out alien soldiers and strapping them up with ropes.
Many franchise fans will be disappointed by the narrative’s lack of attention on the original team. Instead, players will control a fresh set of characters during the Battle of Antarctica, which occurs at the end of the seventh season of the television series. They will assist SG-1 in their battles against Anubis and will eventually discover and foil another evil Goa’uld plot.
The playable characters are not as intriguing as those shown on television shows. Eva McCain is a soldier with a professional demeanour and competence with automatic weapons, whilst Max Bolton is an adventurous sharpshooter with caustic comments to share. A’ta is a Jaffa rebel who works well with her staff and distracts others. Derek Harper is the drone-focused tech person, Sam Watson understands infiltration methods, and Xugga, an Unas soldier, also joins the battle.
You may pause the game at any time and issue instructions to all of your forces, who will all carry them out when you resume play. This is employed in unexpectedly complicated ways at times. Rather of being really sneaky and tactical, you’re tackling a problem designed by the creators to see whether you can sift through the correct sequence of events to locate the solution.
Most regions may be addressed using a variety of playstyles. Eva excels at a run-and-gun strategy, wiping out whole squads with a thrilling torrent of grenades and rifle fire. Alien specialist Sam Watson, on the other end of the spectrum, can pass as a Jaffa and even speak their language, distracting guards with idle chat while the others slip by. This aspect is particularly intriguing because only adversaries of lesser rank would be tricked, therefore missions with Sam frequently focus around finding more senior warriors to isolate and defeat in order to improve your disguise.
Coupled with some great graphics and gameplay, Timekeepers is a fantastic use of your time. Timekeepers also demands a thorough understanding of the Stargate, as the action begins during the Battle of Antarctica, which was buried deep in one of SG-1’s later episodes. It assumes you are familiar with the reference material and the significance of this event, but it does not provide any context for non-Stargate aficionados.
Stargate: Timekeepers is rarely visually spectacular, with the exception of the extraterrestrial surroundings. Sure, the television series’ visual elements are prominent, particularly in the interface. But players must zoom in and squint to see any character characteristics, and after a few missions, it’s evident that the emphasis is on consistent gameplay rather than visual spectacle. The cutscenes are fairly awful, especially when they try to recreate some of the larger set-pieces from the television series.
