 Mmmmmm... NESTROCK? I'm up to my eyeballs and requests, but sometimes I just can't help myself. I randomly run into a Super Nintendo game I hadn't played or hadn't even heard of before, and I gotta find out everything I can about it. This is Time Slip, developed by... SalesCurveInteractive, the same people behind Firepower2000 or SuperSwiv. It's a side-scrolling run-and-gun game complete with a really goofy cover. What, is he being sucked into a Salvador Dalí painting? Is that Ray Leota? And there's an equally goofy title screen. I don't know, maybe this is my worthless associate's degree in graphic design speaking, but this makes me cringe. The colors, the placement, the font... It's all so... ugh. You play as Dr. Vincent Gilgamesh, and you're trying to thwart an alien invasion of Earth. Of course, what else could a sci-fi-themed run-and-gun game possibly be about? The game takes place over a hundred years from now. These aliens, called the Tiamadians, discover some kind of rift in the fabric of space-time that connects their faraway planet with Earth. So they figure, hey, what the hell, let's take it over and make it our own planet. What I like here is that the game actually explains why there's only one dude fighting an entire race of aliens. It's because Earth actually planned on sending like four or five people to fight the aliens, but they're all caught in a surprise attack while trying to enter the space-time rift. Well, thanks anyway. So yeah, that leaves your character as the only one fighting, and he's got to travel through five different time periods to wipe these guys out. Now, as far as run-and-gun gameplay goes, this game is not going to compare to stuff like Contra 3 or any of the Sega Treasure games, not by a long shot, and I wouldn't really expect it to. I mean, games that good don't grow on trees. So if you dial back your expectations a bit, Time Slip is an okay game. It's one of those games where you just hold the button down and shoot everything that moves. Nothing wrong with that. I think the biggest point of contention people will have with Time Slip is the jumping. It's some of the floatiest jumping I've come across. It's like suddenly you're jumping around on the moon or something. It really makes you feel like a sitting duck while you're hung up in the air like that, but it's not a game-breaking flaw or anything like that. There's only five stages here, but the game does a nice job varying the settings, so you get a lot of distinct backgrounds and enemies throughout each. There are even sections where you're commandeering a vehicle, and the game turns into a vertical shoot-em-up. The catch with this game is that while you can take up to five hits before dying, there are no continues, no passwords, and no battery save. You get nine lives to complete the game, and once you lose all of them, its game over start from the beginning. That makes this game pretty tough, but it's not that difficult. Time Slip has nothing on stuff like Earthworm Gym or the Super Star Wars games, and of course you can earn extra lives by collecting enough points. The game helps you out by providing lots of power-ups and upgrades. You can upgrade your default weapon to up to four levels, which helps a ton on boss fights in particular. If you die and are stuck with a level one weapon, it's gonna take FOREVER to defeat these guys. The game makes it plainly obvious when you've picked up a special weapon by displaying it front and center in the middle of the screen. That's a little amateurish. Also, bear in mind the special weapons you pick up only shoot horizontally. They can still be pretty effective, but they only shoot left or right. One thing that makes Time Slip stand out is that it has kind of a makeshift time limit. It's represented in the upper left of the screen as the blue TGS bar. You have to keep that filled by collecting crystals. It slowly empties itself as you progress, and even quicker if you take damage. So you can't dawdle around too long. You always have to keep moving, and that's a nice touch. So yeah, Time Slip is a decent enough run and gun game if that's what you're looking for. The music is pretty good, and the graphics are decent enough for being from a lower budget developer. Although some ideas in the game appear to be a tad bit derivative. I mean, does this part here remind you of any game in particular? Gee, I wonder. Anyway, I've grown to really enjoy finding games like Time Slip. I had never heard of this game or ever hear anyone talking about it. No, it's not any kind of Lost Classic or anything, but it's still not a bad way to spend an hour.