Retro City Rampage

[Alex79]

Anyone played this? I must admit, I'd been looking forward to it for a couple of years now. It finally hit the PSN store this week so I went on this morning to get it. There was a trial, so I downloaded that. I almost just purchased it straight away for £8.99, as I was so confident I'd love it.

Good god I'm glad there was a free trial. It's bloody dreadful! It's like playing ADHD:The Video Game. What on earth is going on!? I was imagining an 8-bit version of the original GTA with added retro homages thrown in the mix. What I got was, well, I really have no idea. I didn't spend more than ten seconds doing one thing before it yoinked me on on to something else.

Played for ten minutes. Deleted.

[NokkonWud]

I've heard a few people who really didn't like it. If I remember, our own Dezm0nd was incredibly disappointed by it. Put me off buying it for sure.

[ratsoalbion]

Actually I thought the demo was great fun. But it was Darren's reports if the game further in that have put me off it. Will grab it in a 400 MSP sale at some point.

[mik]

It's a free download for PS+ members in the US. I played it for 15 minutes and couldn't delete it fast enough after that. Awful, unfunny, insipid game. Bleh.

[Alex79]

Oh really? I imagine it'll be free over here at some point then (although I'm annoyed the Americans got Megaman 8 and 9 free too and we didn't!! I'm actually considering a sub to the US service too). If it does come free over here I'll give it another try for the sake of fairness, but it isn't something I'd want to be paying for at this point!

[dezm0nd]

Biggest disappointment for me of last year. It has a great idea, with some amazing references but when it comes down the mechanics of the missions, it fails miserably. I thought I was going mental when I was the only one saying this but it's quite reassuring to see that people have similar issues.

It's gotten patched on PC since my rant about it on Super Happy Fun Time Show but am I going back? Hell no. It turns out not all indie darlings are the best thing on the planet and the fact this wasn't even a whiff of a farts chance in anyones GOTY talk wasn't surprising.

Garbage.

[Ghost World]

I hope you feel good about yourself Darren because like Karl and Leon already stated hearing you rant about how shit it was on SHFTS and twitter really put me off buying the game.

Oh the power that is kept behind that crazy hair!

[NokkonWud]

Haha, never thought of it like that.

[robschach]

I downloaded the free trial on PS Vita yesterday and while some of the references were rather funny and cool the pacing of it was stupid! It made me wonder just how long it could keep going with that rate of references. As previously mentioned its like an ADHD kid jacked up on caffeine. It would be great to see someone make an actually genuine version of a game like this that in some way was focused and had a bit of meat on it. I would love to see a return to 8-bit / 16-bit games! Like Metal Gear 2 meets Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles meets GTA. Disappointing for sure but maybe more to come in the future though.

[Sean]

I'm not as down on it as everyone else is, but, I also haven't felt terribly inclined to go back to it after a few chapters in. Pissed I spent full price on release day, when it went up free on PS+ but, that's the risk, I guess.

Strangely, I feel like it's a much better fit for Vita than console. I only played it for about 10 minutes at a time, so, being able to quickly jump in and out helped. I imagine playing it for longer stretches could be extra rough.

I'm also curious to see if there are any 360 exclusive references. There are a bunch of PlayStation references, mostly just a handful of characters / skins are people who currently work there, like guys from the American PS Blog, or Shane Bettenhausen. Wonder if that's all in the 360 version as well. Would be a kinda weird crossover.

[ratsoalbion]

I assume they've slotted in more appropriate references depending upon which platform you're playing on. As you say, it would be odd otherwise.

[magicjoef]

Did it ever become available for Vita over here? Would it be a game that worked more as a portable?

[ratsoalbion]

I actually think the gwafix might be too tiny on handheld.

[NokkonWud]

Did it ever become available for Vita over here? Would it be a game that worked more as a portable?

I know it's currently 'free' on PSPlus in the US if you wanted to pick up 3 months. Some other cracking games on their Instant Collection too.