Sierra Entertainment (Vivendi Australia) have today announced TimeShift is available for Xbox 360 and PC at retail across the country. You may remember TimeShift being the FPS based on time-altering weapons that was originally being published by Atari before it was dropped by them and picked up by VU and Sierra. TimeShift will also be releasing on PS3 sometime in the near future.

Developed by Saber Interactive and published by Sierra Entertainment, TimeShift, allows players to control time and use it as the ultimate weapon in a fierce battle against the neo-fascist regime of Dr. Krone. In TimeShift, the story revolves around a highly respected physicist with a mysterious past. When your colleague Dr. Krone goes rogue and uses an experimental time-manipulating suit to create an alternate time stream where he is a grim dictator in a dystopian alternate reality, players must chase after him and use time to overthrow his rule. Armed with similar, yet less stable time-bending suit, players have the ability to slow, stop and reverse the flow of time, while being able to freely interact with the environment and enemies, a feat never before accomplished in video games.

Featuring ground-breaking artificial intelligence, powerfully realistic graphics and deeply immersive sound and story, TimeShift is proving to be one of the first truly next-gen games.

"We are very excited to ship this highly anticipated title to retail," said Colin Brown, Regional General Manager for Vivendi Games in Asia Pacific. "Players are going to see effects in this game unlike anything have seen before. The ability to control time is a very unique feature, which adds another dimension to the gameplay in both the immersive single and incredible multiplayer modes."

With a comprehensive online 16-player multiplayer mode, featuring time controlling "chrono" grenades, 14 different maps and over 40 different customizable features, TimeShift, was developed for elite multiplayer gamers by drawing inspirations from the best FPS's and adapting itself to the players' unique style by incorporating highly customisable gameplay modifiers resulting in a frenetic and competitive multiplayer experience every game.

Sounds like a hoot. This could be one of those dark horse sleeper hits this year, but it has to be tough going up against big guns like Halo 3, The Orange Box, and UT3 (due on PC in a few weeks) as well as non FPS outings like Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect. We'll have to wait and see just how it all fares though. Stay tuned for our review shortly.