Retro City Rampage review

[Silvergun X]

Bought the PC version within minutes of it being available. Was starting to think this would never come out!

Right from the start the retro smacks you in the face, with the emulated TV view complete with scanlines, colour schemes and chiptune soundtrack. It looks absolutely brilliant. I spent quite some time playing around with the different display setups, before settling with the pseudo Game Boy setup complete with Monochrome display

It's a complete parody all the way through and never takes itself seriously for a second. Within minutes of starting up there are references to Megaman, Metal Gear, Duck Hunt, Mortal Kombat, Duke Nukem Forever, Double Dragon... Absolutely tons.

Gameplay is really good fun. You can either shoot using a second stick (WSAD/Arrows on PC) or you can use a fire button to lock onto an enemy and strafe around them, etc. It's actually really full on content underneath all the retro styling, with side missions everywhere, killing sprees, arcade games, minigames, different character styling. There's a lot of game there and online leaderboards for all the individual sprees etc.

Well worth a tenner.

[SuperBeatBoy]

Just bought it myself, really fun stuff and quite funny. The games manual is brilliant.

[Sketcz]

Put an hour into it - really good. Maybe a little overwhelming? There's so much to see, and the missions nip along so quickly I feel like I'm missing stuff. I blinked and quite literally missed half the pun in a mission title.

It's nice once you've finished the first few missions and can take it leisurely.

EDIT:
DO NOT USE THE CODES!!!

I found a wall near the Biff West mansion, read it, input the code, and it said "Cops are Off Your Tail", so then I carried on for like an hour playing, and only afterwards when I tried to manually save did the game warn me: you've input a code, saving disabled until you restart the game.

Gah! All that time, wasted! It gives you zero warning that saving is disabled after entering a code, so stay the **** away from the codes!

After 2-3 hours, there's definitely some rough edges in the game, likely a result of those working on it being so close to the project for so long. I still love it, but man, that lack of code warning left a sour taste.

EDIT:
Turns out the game does give you a warning, but I missed it!

[Sketcz]

I'm done with this. The game doesn't keep count of how many times you die at the last boss or fail a mission, but I've kept a mental note and it's over 80 times now. I've watched the Youtube video, so it is possible, but I just can't do it. The bloody thing uses homing missiles, three in succession, and by the fourth wave you just can't avoid getting hit. You're meant to have 3 energy bars to take damage, but everything kills me with one hit! Glitch, perhaps?

Man, it's just an obscenely difficult way to end a game. Eighty times in a row I've died, sometimes not even lasting more than 10 seconds!

I blame the telegraphing. The bad guy's guns open, so I start to dodge, but then there's a sound effect about 1 or 1.5 seconds later, when the missiles actually come out, by which time I've run out of road and need to veer in the other direction when I get hit. These should have been synced up better I feel. I've actually had some success playing with my eyes close, waiting for the sound effect and then opening my eyes while I veer - unfortunately thjere's silent barrels in the road so I can't do this continuously. It's just a gut reaction: GUNS ARE OPEN EVADE NOW! When actually, it's like, plenty of time old chap, just wait there while the guns are open. Thirty minutes and a cup of tea later and the missiles come out.

I have to admit, I'm not a reflex gamer anymore. I've clocked plenty of games which people say are stupidly difficult (Operation Darkness, Demon's Souls and Dark Souls), but in these cases the tough bits were actually very easy if you knew how to exploit them. I like games like that, ones which have a system to be worked. Find the hole in the armour and hit it!

There is no system here - it's just very, very fast homing missiles, and nothing short of luck and insane reflexes can best it. I even put it in the God Mode code, since I thought at least I can watch the ending even if I can't save. But it doesn't work for the last boss! Gah!

6/10 from me, because while the starter and the main dish were very nice, the dessert really let it down.