Sine Mora

Sine Mora (Latin meaning, "without delay") is a side scrolling shoot 'em up game. The player controls an airplane along two axes while attacking enemies. The gameplay world is rendered in 3D, and at key points an in-game cutscene plays in which the camera and plane move. These are often transitions into another part of the gameplay world, but are also used to give the player a new perspective for things such as boss battles.

The plane's primary weapons can be upgraded, and players are equipped with a limited-use, more powerful secondary weapon to eliminate more on-screen enemies at one time. Consecutive kills with the primary weapon will increase the game's score multiplier, while use of the secondary weapon or time manipulation will reset the multiplier. The player's final score is determined by a number of factors including kills, damage taken, and powerups collected.

Sine Mora features two plots running at different points in time. The first features a father bent on taking revenge on the Empire that executed his son for being the sole pilot that refused to drop a nuclear bomb during an attack on the Enkies. The second features the last survivors of the Enkie race also plotting revenge on the Empire for destroying them. The game stages are often set at the same locations, in noticeably different states due to being set in different eras.

The game takes place on the planet of Seol, which is much like Earth. It differs in that its crust is so unstable it often causes quakes that radically reshape its geography in a small amount of time. Albeit originally split into four great nations, by the time the plot unfolds two factions are locked in the Eternal War: the aggressive and dictatorial Layil Empire and the Atarach Kingdom of the Enkie race. Following the teachings of the great prophet Enki, the Enkie are renowned for their unique talent of manipulating time, to the point of being able to transport any item or even themselves to any point into the past or even the future.

Sine Mora was announced August 18, 2010. It was developed via a partnership between Grasshopper Manufacture and Digital Reality. Grasshopper was responsible for the art direction and sound design, while Digital Reality handled the 3D assets, programming, story and game design. The game is available on both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 via their respective downloadable networks.

The art style for the game is diesel punk inspired. The boss battles for the game were initially designed in large part by Mahiro Maeda, an anime artist known for his work on The Animatrix, Kill Bill, and Neon Genesis Evangelion. Gez Fry directed the game's art and designed the characters, with input from Yoshiro Kimura. The characters were designed as humanoid animals due to Fry's impression that the game was "not crazy enough."

Sine Mora received generally favorable reviews from critics. It currently holds a score of 84.93% at aggregate website GameRankings, while fellow aggregate site Metacritic reports a score of 85/100. The highest score, an approval rating of 95%, came from Chris Carter of Gamer Limit, while the lowest score of 60% approval was shared by the reviewer from Gameblog.Fr and Simon Campanello of Eurogamer Sweden. The majority of reviews rated the game with an 80% approval rating or higher.

Several of Sine Mora's gameplay mechanics were praised by critics. Daemon Hatfield of IGN praised the variety of modes, particularly the game's Boss Training mode, which he felt would prove useful to serious players. Richard Mitchell of Joystiq praised the game's time-based mechanics in particular. He felt that it gives "players a new spin on an age-old formula."