Sine Mora Review [XBLA]

rating:4.5

My formative gaming years were defined quite heavily by the side-scrolling sci-fi shooter, thanks predominantly to Konami's Gradius series, and I have lamented the fact that modern gaming advances have all but put paid to the simple pleasure of piloting a heavily armoured ship through ultra-hostile environments on rails. So hearty thanks must be offered to Digital Reality and Grasshopper Manufacture for bringing the medium back to this gaming generation with Sine Mora, a modernised, take on the action-heavy arcade classics of old, offering something that was rarely considered a necessary part of the genre back in the golden age: story. The narrative is established in a short front-end tutorial: we meet two time-controlling, warring factions - the Layil Empire and the rebel Enkies (not to be confused with the Blackburn Rovers-owning, chicken-peddling Venkys) - who are at loggerheads thanks to the Enkies' reluctance to play by the Empire's rules governing time-travel. The player takes control of the Enkies side: their pilots out to free some comrades, as well as a father looking to get revenge for the death of his Empire pilot son who was killed after refusing to carry out a bombing mission on Enkies territory. So far, so space opera. The gameplay mechanic could well have been lifted out of the late 80s and early 90s: the player is charged with navigating their single ship through densely populated, and beautifully designed 2D environments to face a succession of impossibly over-sized, and over-armed adversaries. But with Sine Mora, the action is more periodic, and though the frequent shifts into narrative sequences can initially feel like they are compromising the pace of the fight-play, the result is a more substantial experience than any of its generic siblings. Rather than a health bar, and fitting in with the whole time control theme, you're given a finite amount time, which is depleted with every hit you take and refilled on the destruction of enemies. The aim of each level is to reach check-points before your clock hits zero, which resets the time gauge and also doubles as the usual save point mechanism, though the lives you get are not infinite, and running out of them before besting an entire level means you have to face the level from the start, in the traditional set-up rather than the far more forgiving modern regeneration culture. The action is very purely entertaining: as well as hitting check-points, the player is also charged with taking down every enemy in sight, with an impressive arsenal, which can be supplemented through power-up pick-ups (released by some destroyed enemies) and a range of unlockable pilots and ships that become available on the completion of levels. Adding to the gun-toting fun, each ship is equipped with a time capsule, which allows you to temporarily slow down time, and makes whupping enemy tail an awful lot easier while it lasts. And brilliantly, Sine Mora is damn hard. The finite ammunition, ticking clock and vast amounts of enemies can make for frustrating moments, but the personal rewards for besting a level are huge. There's also an additional Arcade Mode that strips out the narrative, and lets the player take on the levels and bosses to their leisure, concentrating more heavily on the scoring and multiplier mechanics and offering two additional time-based skills (reversing time and bullet deflection). And rounding out the modes is a fiendishly hard Score Attack mode and Boss Training mode that allows you to practice taking on the heaviest bosses with infinite ammo and credits, as preparation for the campaign. The real star of the show is the art design and execution: the worlds painted for Sine Mora are exquisite and beautiful and it is they that offer the first selling point for the game. The backgrounds are impressively designed and hugely detailed, and the animations in the foreground stand up to those high standards, especially in terms of the enemy bosses. If the real intention of the Arcade is to offer different game experiences to the normal commercial line of titles in the mainstream, then it has succeeded in Sine Mora. Though there are some very slight short-comings, the game offers a fresh shoot-em-up experience, channelling the spirit and hook of classic side-scrollers and adding some narrative depth, all played against a stunning backdrop. And at the XBLA price point (1200 points), it absolutely deserves your attention, as so much more than a beautiful curio.

Sine Mora is available from the XBLA now.