In case you’re just joining us, and want a quick lowdown of the game, Sine More is a 2D sidescrolling shoot em up, in the vein of classic NES and SNES games in the same genre. It is visually rendered in three dimensions, however, although gameplay is only restricted to two axes, leading to a rather striking effect- something that is only accentuated by the gorgeous art style of the game, designed by Akira Yamaoka, the man behind Silent Hill’s brilliant graphics. The graphics come together with the great soundtrack to create a stellar experience as far as the storytelling goes. Really, for an Arcade game, Sine Mora’s production values really are top notch. The graphics and the sound come together to create a treat for the senses, and one of the best looking games of the year from a purely artistic and aesthetic standpoint.

Sine Mora isn’t just about the flash and the panache, though. There’s more to it than just that, some real substance behind those gorgeous graphics. As mentioned several times, Sine More plays like the old 2D sidescrolling SHMUPs from the 16 bit era. It emulates those old games well, which means it was already a great game to begin with. It’s new mechanics, all of them well thought out and all of them excellently implemented, are just icing on the cake.

Take, for example, the health system, which is nothing like anything you have seen in a game before, and might send you for a spin at first. Sine Mora uses time as a central mechanic, both in its gameplay, and in its storytelling, and it dispenses with health entirely. Instead, you have a time bar, which continues to tick down to zero at all times. Taking damage speeds the process up, and if and when the meter ticks down to zero, you’re done for. The time bar can be refilled using the pickups that enemies drop, and it also adds to your overall score. It all plays a bit differently from traditional SHMUPs, and it leaves Sine Mora the better game for it.

This, in addition to powers that manipulate time, slowing everything else down while you speed up, add up to the appeal of the game greatly. Sine Mora is, in general, a game made to appeal even to modern gamers in spite of its genre, and its Normal difficulty should be breezy for most veterans of the genre, while newcomers will find it challenging enough. If, however, you are aching for the unforgiving difficulty of SHMUPs of old, then you can always switch to Insane difficulty, where things really start getting hectic. There’s a lot going on on screen, and essentially, your survival relies on your twitch reflex response, because a single hit might be enough to kill you.

Sine Mora has three modes, the main Story mode (which tries to give context to the action via a story that is absolutely incomprehensible), a Score Attack mode, and an Arcade mode. The titles are pretty self explanatory, and each mode adds something unique to the mix, and lends the game with a lot of replay value.

Ultimately, how good is the game? It’s as good now as it ever was. Roughly half a year wasn’t enough to remove its sheen, and it still remains a fun and gorgeous game. Sine Mora is equally recommended now as it was back then, and if you haven’t played it on a PS3 or Xbox 360 already, now’s the time to change that. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what system you play it on, the core game remains as good as ever and is highly and fully recommended.

This game was reviewed on the PC.

As a “bullet hell” title, wherein navigating the screen among the flurry of bullets is as much a challenge as completing the level, Sine Mora works as a horizontal shooter where time is as important as finding ways to combat the freakish enemies. A Story Mode and Arcade Mode are featured, allowing players to manipulate time and employ 50 weapon combinations to overcome the odds (and a scaling difficulty) for overall victory.

Check out the new trailer below for a glimpse into the mechanisms and madness of Sine Mora.

About Sine Mora:

Game Overview:

Sine Mora is a horizontal shoot’em up (shmup) that provides a unique take on the genre as now time is the ultimate factor. Mixing classic shooter sensibilities with contemporary HD presentation, Sine Mora is a gorgeous shooter that offers a Story Mode that weaves an over-the-top tale and an Arcade Mode that provides deep, satisfying gameplay to challenge fans of the genre. With many ways to manipulate time, Sine Mora features over 50 weapon combinations to complete each beautiful stage that adapts to the player’s skills with scaling difficulty.

Publisher: Kalypso Media (PC)
Digital Reality (PS3 X360)

Developer: Digital Reality

Platforms: PS3, X360 and PC

Release Date: 9/11/2012 (online) (PC)

Stay tuned to Gamingbolt.com for more news and updates.

The festival is a means of promoting Western games in Japan, and since Digital Reality is a Hungarian company, it’s on the role call.

Black Knight Sword has been billed as “a side-scrolling hack and slasher with a hefty dose of platforming, and oodles of blood and gore” with “cardboard cutout enemies and pop-up scenery all unfolding behind a red curtain on the stage of the game’s weird puppet theatre”.

Sounds a lot like Sony’s upcoming Puppeteer. Check out the trailer below and judge for yourself.

It’s a shoot ’em up game and so far the reviews have been pretty positive. We reviewed the game as well, and you can check that out over here.

“Sine Mora is a really refreshing game, and is one that is created with a lot of love and affection. People who are fans of this genre shouldn’t think twice about picking this one up, it is possibly one of the best Shmups I’ve ever played,” I wrote in the review.

The game costs 1200 MSP on XBLA, and releases today. Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Sine Mora is a Shoot ’em up (Shmup) for Xbox Live Arcade, created by Grasshopper Manufacture and Digital Reality. I wasn’t expecting the game to have such a cinematic flair and expert camera positioning. Needless to say, these things do a great job in immersing you in the game. And what a game it is! It makes a great first impression with splendid audio-visual flair, and once you start the Story mode, you will be surprised to see that the entire thing is in Hungarian. Although, I have to say, it was a pretty unique way of presenting a game.

The writing is top-notch, and before you start each level -sixteen in total- there is a big description that attempts to explain the events that occur. In the Story mode, the game guides you between levels, and you don’t really have the choice of picking any ship, but in case people just want to shoot at things, they can do so in the Arcade mode. Since the game is exclusive to XBLA, it is quite similar to Soldner X2 on PSN, although, it’s in 2.5D. Which means, when the camera keeps changing you can see a lot of spectacular environments. The gameplay is entirely in 2D, though.

The story can get pretty convoluted especially for people who skip text fast and just try to get into the action, and as I mentioned above, there’s always the Arcade mode for that, but the story here in this game is actually quite nicely told. It can get a little confusing from time to time, because of the voice overs, but with a little patience you can see how brilliant it actually is, and definitely manages to reel you in the game.

The main USP of the game is definitely the visuals and the soundtrack, which has been composed by Akira Yamaoka of the Silent Hill and Shadows of the Damned fame. The music is absolutely phenomenal here, and for an arcade game, it’s really refreshing to see such high production values. No wonder Microsoft is publishing this game, they have an inherent ability of recognizing talent. The game will titillate your ocular senses with its graphics, and the variety of levels  offer here is simply special.

You can also slow down time using a ‘Time Capsule’ and it’s also explained in the story about an Eternal War. Since you will be bombarded with projectiles of various colours, sizes and shapes, avoiding them can become difficult. But that’s the fun part, and makes Sine Mora a fitting representation of its genre. At the end of each level, you will be fighting well designed bosses with creative names. These bosses are designed by Mahiro Maeda, who is a well renowned Japanese Anime creator. Again, the production values of this game is simply incredible.

There are plenty of modes in the game, Score Attack, Arcade, Story mode, and Boss Training. The names are self-explanatory, really. There’s a lot of content and replayability in this game, and this is the reason why it is priced at 1200 MSP. It’s a little on the higher side, but the developers have done justice to the pricing and the game is well worth the money asked. I do have an issue with the game, however, and it’s mainly due to the time limit employed. I can’t really seem to enjoy games that don’t allow me to play as I want, but here it was a bit different. The limit is generous and you mostly won’t have any problems in completing the levels.

Sine Mora is a really refreshing game, and is one that is created with a lot of love and affection. People who are fans of this genre shouldn’t think twice about picking this one up; it is possibly one of the best Shmups I’ve ever played. The game has fantastic visuals, impressive soundtrack and most importantly, well designed levels and bosses. You really can’t go wrong with this game.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

The game in a nutshell is pretty straight forward. You fly your plane through a course littered with obstacles and power-ups. You can hold up to two power ups at a time and freely switch between them, but once you use them up they’re removed from your inventory. If you pick up a worthless power-up, or one that you want to get rid of for whatever reason, you can elect to use up that power-up to help fill your boost gauge. In addition, each power up has a second level if you pick up two of the same power-up increasing the potency of said power-up. All in all the power ups were very satisfying to use and I was rarely disappointed to pick up one or another as they are all valuable and have a specific function that can help you win races.

When it comes to selecting your plane, there are eight separate planes all with varying stats which give each plane a unique feel to its handling. Although you will only have access to two from the start, you can unlock more by playing through the campaign mode. In addition to the eight planes, each plane has four different skins that you can choose from. Some of these skins will need to be unlocked by fulfilling certain requirements either offline or online giving a little extra replay-ability to this arcade title.

The visuals are amazing!

Unfortunately, one downside is the anemic selection of tracks. I counted six different tracks, with reverse versions of each giving a grand total of 12 possible track lay outs. This is perhaps one of the single most important aspects of a racing game next to controls, and is perhaps this game’s greatest weakness. While three different game modes try to make up for the deficit in tracks, that still only gives you a grand total of 36 ways to play.

In regards to the three different game modes, all three play pretty similarly, but have enough variety to them to make them feel different enough. Power races are the basis of this game and from what I could tell the preferred mode for online play. In power races, you fly through the level picking up power ups that you use to help yourself or blow up the competition. Pretty standard and expected based on the game’s description and hallmark game play. Speed races are another type in which the goal is not to shoot down your opponents and come in first, but rather to fly through the various rings throughout the stage getting progressively faster. This is a race type suited more for experienced Skydrift players as I can personally vouch for the existence of several ‘traps’ within courses that I’ll crash into even at normal speeds. Finally, there’s survival, a game mode where the object is to not be in last. One minute into racing a 30 second countdown will appear. When that countdown reaches zero, whoever is in last place gets eliminated from the race and the counter resets. The careful use of power-ups is especially important in this mode as you want to make sure you have the capability to pull ahead of someone at the perfect moment, or protect your position so you don’t get blown off the course with seconds to spare before elimination.

Multi-player is entirely done online, so you may be disappointed to find out that there is no local multi-player; something that could have really saved this game. The online experience isn’t bad and there are usually a handful of other racers online at any given time leading to a fair wait time from seeking a match to hitting the track. In addition to being able to fully customize your individual races, when doing a series with a group you are given the ability to vote on tracks between races so the majority will be happy and you can have a say in staying away from any problem courses you might have.

Power-ups mean the difference between victory and defeat.

There are a few other neat features with this game such as the ability to do stunts such as flying at low altitudes to charge your boost meter. This will reward skilled players and help keep those that are truly good at the game in top positions rather than the seemingly lucky random come from behind victories that are rampant throughout other games of this genre. The controls are a little awkward and will take a race or two before you’re used to them. As they seek to emulate proper flight controls, you must remember that down is up and vice-versa. Also, this game is absolutely gorgeous! I was thoroughly impressed with the textures and effects in a title that costs only $15; A shame because if this game had some more content, I could see it selling fairly well in retail stores for $40 easily.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

Check out the first Gladiator Multiplayer trailer for Skydrift.

Improve your dog fighting skills with you and up to seven other players in six cut-throat arenas- including Warfactory, U.F.O. and Scrapyard. Jump into a blazing dogfight or create a new arena in order to pick the specific course settings, like weather conditions or Time Limits.

For more on SkyDrift please click here

Skydrift is an action-driven arcade air racing video game. The tagline of the game is: “If you can’t overtake them, shoot them down!”. The game is developed by Digital Reality, published on Xbox LIVE by Namco Bandai Partners S.A.S. and Digital Reality.

Improve your dog fighting skills with you and up to seven other players in six cut-throat arenas- including Warfactory, U.F.O. and Scrapyard. Jump into a blazing dogfight or create a new arena in order to pick the specific course settings, like weather conditions or Time Limits.

For more on SkyDrift please click here