Time Recoil

Your mission: land somewhere in the past and eliminate anything that moves, in a top-down shooter, to save the world from the evil Mr Time. Time Recoil is one of those unpretentious games the gaming community loves. With the ability to slow time, plenty of blood and gore, and destructible environments, we can see why. The difficulty really heats up from the 5th level onwards…

Developed by the team behind the fantastic Crimsonland and Neon Chrome, Time Recoil carves out a niche of its own. This time you'll be manipulating time and speed, just like the fight scenes in The Matrix.

You play as Alexa, a woman who must travel into the past to save the world. "Standard sci-fi fare", I hear you cry! But here, you have only limited ammo, and you'll need to slow down time itself if you're to come out on top.

We loved the super-intuitive controls: just move with the left stick and aim with the right. And to shoot, just pull the trigger. The first level serves as a tutorial.

The core gameplay mechanics are pretty straightforward. You move around a small map to reach an objective, killing every enemy you find along the way.

The thing that makes this game special lies elsewhere, in how you control time, a mechanic that's intimately linked to how many enemies you take out. Whenever you kill an enemy, time slows down for a few seconds. This gives you a chance to take your time while keeping the carnage going, comfortable in the knowledge that whenever you kill a bad guy, time will slow down for you again.

You still need to be on your guard, though: as the slowdowns mount up, you'll still need to dodge enemy projectiles.

As you progress through the game, you'll unlock additional abilities that can be stacked as your killing spree continues. You'll unlock the first ability with a combo of two kills, which lets you attack through walls. Next, you'll unlock an area of effect attack that will kill all the enemies inside the circle.

The maximum bonus is unlocked after 8 kills, and time stops completely. You're then free to stroll around while everything else remains still, firing bullets that will freeze until time starts moving again and they all shoot off towards their targets. This is where the strategic element comes into play.

You'll need to plan ahead and carefully target enemies so that you can kill as many as possible at the same time, without getting yourself killed by a single bullet. This is not a game to go in all guns blazing.

Our advice? Be prepared for the difficulty to be ramped up much higher after level 5. You'll need to collect all of the ammo you can find if you're to make it through alive.

Time Recoil is the perfect next game for anyone who loved Neon Chrome. The RPG and rogue-lite elements have been replaced with time manipulation mechanics. It all feels familiar, but breaks new ground while staying firmly focused on the action.

And because there's plenty of violence and blood splashing around, it goes without saying that this isn't a game for the kids.