Sine Mora ex is a diesel-punk shoot ’em up, or for those who do not recall this genre a three-dimensional scrolling shooter, by Digital Reality / Grasshopper Manufacture. Playing like a true classic comparable to the likes of the old scrolling Sonic the Hedgehog or Super Mario games, Sine Mora is a stage based, futuristic and highly artistic game. Following a group of characters undergoing various mercenary-style missions, you must battle your ways through the skies and the seas past various futuristic battle crafts and super-powered bosses; shooting, using special abilities and even slowing down time to defeat these devastating opponents.
The storyline seems to be a complex one, which does not necessarily match the simplicity of the gameplay. Neither one of these things is necessarily a negative, as it will work for players of different interests. The general story seems to follow some sort of a rebellious group who have some manner of knowledge over their enemy and seek to stop their plans, hence the various missions which the storyline follows. It is perhaps best left at this as a description in order to give those who would like to play the game for the story a chance to pick up on it, and those with little interest the information which they are really looking for.
The game runs against a scrolling landscape with the player taking control of various futuristic-style aircraft; some of which seem to be able to run under water. Controlling this is very simple, with the abilities to move up, down, back and forwards alongside firing a primary and secondary weapon. Further than this, the only other key control is the ability to control time by slowing it down for short periods. With this small arsenal on board, the player must fight through various stages and opponents. For the most part these stages are relatively short and the opponents small and easily defeated, however one of the major elements of the game is the “boss fights”. These bosses are very intricately drawn, as is the landscapes on top of which the game is played. What’s more, they also have an extreme, maybe even over-powerful arsenal on board, meaning the player need not only destroy them, but tactically avoid their firepower in doing so.
All of this together gives the game a true feel of a classic; with the scrolling landscape, cannon fodder enemies and big boss fights being comparable to some of the old time greats of the gaming industry. At the same time however, it has brought this feel into the modern day with graphics created from what would appear to be artistic genius right down to the last detail. The music and sounds of the game very much add to the impressiveness of it, immersing you in the play despite the simplicity of the game itself. Such beauty however begs the question of the game’s problems, if such things exist. One minor detail is that the story is fairly difficult to follow unless you avidly read all of the fillers between stages, but this does not affect the fun that can be had in the game too much.
Where there are issues they are minor at best. Bearing in mind that this is being sold as an arcade game and fits very well in this style, its simplicity is hardly a point for criticism. True the game may be more at home as an application on a phone or tablet in the modern industry, but it is not being sold as a major release that is to go down in record books. The main “problem” with the game if there were to be one is that less time was clearly spent on making the battles intense and the ammunition fired appear dangerous and startling. Instead there simply appears to be various coloured lines which fly from side to side between the player’s craft and the opponents. although this does not take away from the overall game play all that much it is a shame that this element of the play was not considered so much. The original hungarian language is still available in the game, however Sine Mora Ex now gives us an english translation, its ok, just not great. The text in the game which appears between stages of the game is small and can be difficult to read. Aside from these issues the game succeeds in being what it claims to the potential player to be.
The game has also been upgraded since its original outing with new local co-op mode for the story mode, which makes the game even more fun and frantic. A new 16.9 Resolution, 3 New versus modes which include Race, Tanks and Dodgeball and all New challenge levels, everything has bumped this game up to an all new standard and is well worth grabbing a copy if you ask me.
Overall, despite the simplicity of the game, it’s confusing storyline and the fact that on a personal basis it can be preferable to be more involved, interactive and influential to the world around the player in the game, some people may find they may get strangely immersed in the game. The graphics placed before the player are no less than truly stunning and can barely be faulted at all. The landscapes are in truth beautiful without going into a lengthy, wordy description. For any lover of a more traditional style of game then this is definitely one for you, particularly if you like your big boss battles. An arcade classic in the making with no attempt being made to sell it as anything more, Sine Mora could easily go far amongst the right style of gamers in its audience.
When it comes to playing this game off a docked console and on to the Nintendo Switch, which then allows you to play anywhere at anytime with anyone, the game opens up even more, with the ability to play local co-op with the joy-cons. Of coarse you also have the ability to play the game un-docked and on the move via the small screen. The game looks and feels just as good as it did in its original outing on the PS3 and XBox 360, the PC, PS4, Xbox One & Nintendo Switch, just improves it even more.
This game is well worth buying and we would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good old fashioned shoot-em up.
Here is the link to the Nintendo eShop: for £24.99
www.nintendo.com/games/detail/sine-mora-ex-switch
The game is also available for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation®4:
PSN-Link EU: https://store.playstation.com/#!/games/cid=EP4389-CUSA08076_00-SINEMORA0DE0EU00
Xbox Live Link: https://www.microsoft.com/store/p/Sine-Mora-EX/C07MPPVTXVVZ
Steam Link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/606730/Sine_Mora_EX/
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