As the elderly, yet oddly toned kung-fu monk decapitated my time-traveling, identity-losing hero-with-nothing-to-lose for the fifth time in as many minutes, I couldn't really be blamed for impotently throwing my mouse at the television that I can ill-afford, cracking its screen in cathartic rage. 

But I didn't do that. Instead, I switched to my lightsaber -- yes, my lightsaber -- and leaped back into the fray. I hunted that bastard like Quatermain hunting a lion, cautiously. He was below me now, but he hadn't noticed me lingering atop the grate which would become my point of entry. I slipped through those metal bars like some oiled contortionist and landed right next to him just as he was bandaging his many wounds. 

That's when I struck, carving up his back like a cowardly man who has been killed one too many times. Within seconds he was nothing more than gibs, chunks of meat and bone strewn across the floor. It was a cheap kill, but damn did it feel grand. 

The Showdown Effect is a multiplayer deathmatch extravaganza where players measure their lives in seconds and handfuls of minutes. It's an absurd parody of '80s action movie tropes, but underneath the hood it's a precise, fast, skill-based title that harkens back to the heady days when Quake and GoldenEye took up so much of my time.