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The best way to describe Retro City Rampage is to imagine that the team who made Grand Theft Auto, back in 1997, actually released the game ten years earlier for the NES. It's pretty much an open world sandbox game made to look like it was from the late ‘80s. Everyone nowadays knows how popular open world games are. Does the old school vibe of Retro City Rampage play nice with modern game mechanics? Well let's find out!

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You play as Player, a career criminal in Theftropolis looking for work. Player spots an advertisement looking for henchmen and winds up working with the villain the Jester. After a crazy bank heist Player finds himself in front of a convenience store when a time traveling phone booth drops in front of him. Player takes the phone booth for a ride, crashes it and is quickly helped out randomly by an old scientist who can help fix the machine if Player helps him find the parts. Crazy I know but that's what I imagine the creator of the game wanted it to be. Retro City Rampage is playing for an age of video games long past that were light on story and heavy on gameplay. There doesn't seem to be a focus on plot here but there are thousands of references to popular movies, TV shows and video games of the ‘80s and ‘90s that are thrown at you relentlessly. Bottom line, if you're playing this game for the story you're sort of missing the point. 

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The graphics in this game are beautiful. If you were a kid in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s this visual style totally calls to you. Every little design rendered in 8-bit pixel perfection. It even has some of the graphical glitches common with old NES games of the era. Much of the design is heavily inspired by games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Smash TV, Super Mario Brothers, Skate or Die, Doki Doki Panic, Zelda, Mega Man and the list goes on and on. You even have the ability to change the borders, graphics and colors to emulate specific systems like the Virtual Boy, Amiga and Atari. There's a lot of thought and detail put into the visuals of this game.

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The music and sound effects in this game are unquestionably NES inspired. It sounds just like it was being played off an old NES box and the game is filled with parodies of sound and music effects from a whole bunch of classic games. But it also has a pretty wide selection of original music that was really well done. It sounds very good for the period it’s trying to represent. They even include the sound of the spring in your old light gun. While it's something you wouldn't have actually heard in the game, it’s a sound that’s very familiar to all of us that grew up playing games like Duck Hunt and Hogan's Alley. All the audio in this game is top-notch

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Retro City Rampage is not parroting the gameplay of all the games it’s referencing but it does take a few chapters out of the original Grand Theft Auto’s book. You're pretty much looking at a top down, free roaming experience with mission elements scattered throughout the game world. There are points like in Nolan’s Arcade in the city where you can play arcade style minigames. Also during the story there are changes in gameplay and perspective for small segments. But because of the game's rapid pace and humor it never feels like you're doing one task over and over again. Much of the controls are very tight especially while playing the game with a good dual stick controller like the Xbox 360’s gamepad. However if you're playing this on the PC with a keyboard the game isn’t as fun, just trust me on this. You're gonna want to play this game with some kind of controller attached to your PC. 

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Really my only harsh criticism of the game in general is its sudden and sporadic changes in difficulty. I can always understand having extra difficult parts of the game for unlockables for the more dedicated of players. But when it's something that needs to be beaten in order to progress and finish the game this can really piss you off. Trust me when it gets hard it gets really, really, frustratingly, stupid hard. I personally think this game is worth a play. It might not be for everyone and its pace might put certain players off but it's a fun experience you can't find in many other games.

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