Up and coming developer 24 Carat Games has announced that their latest game, Retro/Grade, is coming soon on PSN.  The concept is that you play a space fighter pilot who upon saving the universe, manages to pull a Star Trek by causing a temporal anomaly that reverses time. Therefore, you’ll have to battle the enemy all over again, but backwards a la the movie Memento.

How’s this possible? After all, you’d have to predict not only when you fired your last shot, but where your ship was positioned at the time. You also have to dodge the enemy ships’ gunfire as well, before it happens. Confused? Don’t be. The truth is that Retro/Grade is actually a rhythm game very cleverly disguised as a classic side-scroll space shooter. Take a look at the screenies and you can see that the playing field looks like what you’d see in Guitar Hero or Rock Band, but turned horizontally. The light beams are merely music bars and the “explosions” are the notes. In fact, you can even use a guitar controller to play the game.

There’s no word yet on when exactly Retro/Grade will be released on PSN, but in the meantime check out the screenies and the trailer.