Retro City Rampage DX Review
It was just over a year ago when we first saw the release of Retro City Rampage. Quite a lot of excitement surrounded the releases due to the nostalgia that would be felt because we hadn’t seen an old-school, top-down, crime-ridden city since the original GTA. I for one couldn’t wait to play RCR but strangely enough, I never got round to it… Now, Finally, a release on the 3DS is sure to be a hit and the perfect platform for the game. Who doesn’t want to play a retro GTA rip off on the move?
So, as mentioned above RCR is the top-down GTA-style shooter that we’ve been waiting for, for a while. You’ll travel the city by foot, by bike, by motorcycle or by car and cause mayhem throughout. Just as we expect, the game is made up of the same missions that more than often start to get a little monotonous after about an hour such as the fetch missions, take out this person, steal this etc etc, but Retro City Rampage does it a little better and doesn’t start to grind until after a few hours… But, it does still grind!
Gameplay as a whole is very unforgiving and can grind on you. It did me. Many times I felt as though a death or accident wasn’t my fault, but instead the fault of the camera or lack of being able to clearly see and judge what was going on due to the size of the people and vehicles etc. I appreciate that the 3DS has a small screen and that you can change the camera to make things even smaller in order to have a better depth of field, but still, it just doesn’t feel totally right.
You have your main missions, side missions and mini game activities and they’re pretty well designed and keep you on your toes but like I mentioned above, these missions do grind! Another annoyance is that RCR constantly tries to take the best out of past game and movie releases and put them together in a cliché-infested and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny title. The problem with this is it quite quickly becomes a little too much. For example, you’ll find yourself running missions for a man named “Doc” that has a car that can “travel through time” and you can kill enemies by jumping on their head. . . . You get my drift. Trying to be a “Jack of all trades, master of none” is common in the gaming world but RCR takes the mick and goes way over the top. I would have preferred RCR to have had its own identity….
The touch screen is of great use and well worked into RCR. You can select your weapon of choice, look at the map read dialogue. Having the layout as it is leaves you with nothing but gameplay on the top screen which, due to the size of the screen has to be the way but great nonetheless.
Visually, the game is dull, but it’s meant to be this way. RCR is the 8-bit style game that was the norm about 20 years ago and it takes everything into account in order to be everything you used to know, and it does it well. Again, this is how it’s meant to be designed and it is designed very well!
For me, the best part of RCR is the soundtrack. I felt like Peter Pan. I was about 5 years old being treated to some of the best gaming music ever created and RCR brought all of this back to me. Never have I enjoyed an old-school game soundtrack as much as this since the original Robocop theme that I first heard on the Gameboy in 1990.
Overall I think that RCR is a great game that would be enjoyed by most. The greats definitely weigh out the not-so-greats, but I can’t help but feel that the game would have been better if it was its own and unique in some way. The one thing I will say is that My complaints are in the minority, meaning that you personally may enjoy the route that RCR takes more than I did. And for less than £8, why not give it a go and support the talented indie dev.
To see what's new in RCR DX, please go to RetroCityRampage
7/10
Review By wicket2961
