Time Recoil, a top-down shooter where you kill to slow time is now on Linux

10tons Ltd have now put out a Linux version of their time-slowing top-down shooter 'Time Recoil' [Steam, Official Site], so I took a little look.

Disclosure: Key provided by the developer.

Time Recoil is a light story-based top-down action shooter, where you hop through time to redeem yourself and killing enemies will slow down time. Your goal? Kill Mr Time. He has caused the death of millions as he attempts to control the world.

You play as Alexa, a woman imprisoned by Mr Time, who was gifted the power to survive certain aspects of time travel and you also gained a few interesting powers.

Honestly, I'm quite surprised by it. Part of it was very Half-Life like, I would say one scene in particular was heavily inspired by it. Was pretty well done too, I really liked what they did! The game doesn't really do much else like it, but that scene really was familiar.

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Note: The Linux version currently comes without FXAA, but they say it will be added in a future update.

The developers seem to really love their top-down shooters, with Crimsonland and Neon Chrome already on Linux. Now we have Time Recoil and soon we will get their next game JYDGE. Each game does have unique feature to separate them, so it's not like they're pushing out re-hashes.

The game has three difficulty modes, a Normal mode where enemy bullets vanish when they die, a Hardcore mode where bullets don't vanish and enemies react quicker and an even more difficult mode you can unlock after that. Naturally I went right in on the Hardcore mode for the full experience.

You don't just slow time when you kill enemies, if you kill enough quickly you also then gain a special power. You can dash through walls and people, or unleash devastating area of effect attacks. It's pretty slick, like dodging bullets in the Matrix film and it was pretty amusing.

I thought it was too easy at first, then the later levels were quite a bit more difficult when you have multiple enemies around you firing. Most of my deaths were me not paying enough attention and running into fire, it's a one hit kill situation so death can come very quickly.

Missions do vary a little, but not enough during the early parts to give it some proper variety. You speak to a person for your mission, travel back in time and then blast up some fools, maybe collect some items and then travel back. Part of the problem, is that the levels themselves are really quite small so it doesn't take long at all to get through them. The game does mix things up in the later chapters, thankfully and made it more interesting again.

I have to admit though, getting dash after dash, as I powered through walls and flesh made it quite an experience. As did dying over and over on certain levels, putting my patience to the test.

Overall

It does end up a little repetitive, but I liked it. If you enjoy your top-down shooters that slow time, with plenty of destruction and a story about time travel then it might be for you. It's fun for a while, but needed something a little more to make it awesome.