[NEWS] Three Men And A Grand Theft Auto V Trailer

Mat Paget

The newest trailer for Grand Theft Auto V was released today, and it seems to be a lot more lighthearted than its 2008 predecessor. I’m sure that won’t be the entire case when the game releases Spring 2013, but it sure is nice to see some humour still alive in the series. The trailer showcases the three protagonists, along with their lifestyles and family members. Also, a dog!

You can check out the trailer below.

[REVIEW] Retro City Rampage

Joe Roobol

(PlayStation 3 [REVIEWED], PlayStation Vita, Wii, Xbox 360, PC)

Let’s talk history for a second. In 1997, a small UK-based developer called DMA Design released an open-world top-down shooter called Grand Theft Auto. It was bright. It was flashy. Every object you struck while in a vehicle hemorrhaged enormous numbers of points that filled up the screen. Grand Theft Auto eventually grew up and moved on from the very arcade-like feel of its infancy. The sandbox crime-spree genre has expanded to include a couple of memorable franchises, and it’s roots are as strong as ever. Fifteen years later, the proof of this has come. Retro City Rampage was released.

Retro City Rampage is a game about time travel, shooting lots of men, and stealing many, many cars to cause chaos in an 8-bit city. You are “the Player,” both in name and literally, an aspiring supervillain and a henchman by trade. A bank robbery goes wrong and, by a series of hilariously contrived events, Player is sent through time to the year 20XX. You have to steal, drive, and shoot your way through Retro City, a place with a passing familiarity with Vancouver, B.C., home of developer Vblank.

To call this game a nostalgia trip is an understatement. This is a game that starts cranked up to 11 and refuses to stop; it’s difficult to find yourself in any situation while playing without being inundated with references to classic ’80s and ’90s movies and video games. Within the first ten minutes, you’ll encounter off-brand Bill & Ted, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The A-Team, just to name a few cameos. Vblank has struck a careful balance, however. While there are a few groan-inducing gags sprinkled throughout, at no time does any of it become tiring or “too much.” I hesitate to mention any of the particularly funny moments of the game, because I feel like it would be spoiling it.

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An 8- or 16-bit look is somewhat of a trope for the indie game scene by this point, but I think this game does it pretty well. The sprites are handsome and each one looks like a lot of care and attention to detail went into it. While characters and pedestrians are quite small, they come across well and small details like what hairstyle or hat you’ve bought from a store are included on your in-game sprite. The world of Retro City is very bright and a lot of detail has been put into designing both a pretty believable 8-bit city, as well as a huge amount of jokes that appear in places the player might not even go to more than once while playing.

My favourite part of games is often the music and sound design offered, and Retro City Rampage is no slouch in this department. There are many musical tracks, some original and some based on classic video game tunes, including a great parody of the Mega Man 2 theme song. The sound effects are great, and are extremely evocative of some of the games that I grew up with.

The controls are tight and responsive in Retro City Rampage, and it feels equally good to play with both d-pad and sticks. Vehicles carry a fair amount of momentum behind them, which is perfect for causing chaos and racking up loads of points. The game offers two different control options for vehicles, but I personally felt most comfortable with the “automatic” scheme, mostly due to how the immediate turning allowed me to weave in and out of traffic quickly, to keep my speed up. Speaking of speed, this game’s pacing is absolutely breakneck. At no time did I ever find myself with nothing to do but walk or drive to the next mission. Retro City is fairly compact so no two points are too far away and there are dozens of side missions and distractions along the way.

Car crashes, explosions, bodies piling up… yep, just your average day in Theftropolis City.

Retro City Rampage has a tightly packed and fairly varied mission structure. While all missions inevitably boil down to “go here, kill men, repeat,” the situations and gameplay in each instance is fairly unique and stays acceptably fresh. You might find yourself having to slog through a Smash TV-style series of arenas filled with baddies one mission, and then be gunning down thugs in a machine gun-equipped kart the next. The various weapons are all a joy to use, right down to the particulars of the hilarious man-launching knock back the golf club packs, or the way you can make guys bounce off their motorcycles just so when hit with a rocket. Combat feels super satisfying; sprites love to fly from the impact of your weapons, and it evokes a very weight-driven feel despite the primitive graphics and systems in place.

There are a few minigames to play, as well. They’re all entertaining and for the most part controller-bendingly difficult to master. Virtual Meat Boy is a faux-3D “racing” game similar to Super Hang-On or Rad Racer, dressed to the nines in a Virtual Boy red-on-black aesthetic, and features a nausea inducing red/cyan anaglyph 3D mode. This minigame isn’t what I would call “true” to the Meat Boy experience, as levels are much longer than the standard and focus less on mastering control and more on memorizing what obstacles are ahead. Also included is a BIT.TRIP RUNNER minigame, which is equal parts fast and frustrating, a true testament to the “Nintendo hard” games of yore. Completing these minigames fully will unlock characters to play as in Free Roam mode, and I suppose personal satisfaction.

Come on. You saw something like this coming. You’re not getting off that easy.

Retro City Rampage is a product of the time it’s trying to evoke. While it’s all references and jokes on the surface, it does not shy away from demanding some difficult tasks of the player. It wasn’t totally uncommon for me to find myself repeating a mission for the third or fourth time because I just barely failed it by the last guy, or just barely didn’t make a time limit. It can be a difficult game when it wants to be, but it’s a game that wants you to have a lot of fun at the same time. I would heartily recommend purchasing this game if you fairly often find yourself having an hour or two to kill, as it feels great as a pick-up and play experience.