Retro City Rampage PC
Metascore
71 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 25 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 25
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 25
  3. Negative: 1 out of 25
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  1. Gamereactor Sweden
    Nov 16, 2012
    40
    As a game it's boring. As a parody it totally sucks.

User Reviews

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User Score
8.3 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 56 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 19
  3. Negative: 2 out of 19
  1. ActRaiser
    4
    After booting up the game I was initially very impressed with the NES look of the game. Even more so when I went to the settings and found the many different display options available. You can make the game look like any old console or computer you can think of, from the zx spectrum and Commodore 64, to the Gameboy, or even PC CGA display. Unfortunately my enthusiasm was damped somewhat once the game actually started. After the initial nostalgic joy of seeing a new game that harks back to the 8-bit visual style, you suddenly realise everything is absolutely tiny. The sprites are minuscule, smaller than Lemmings, or the Cannon Fodder soldiers. We are talking magnifying glasses territory here. This seems a strange choice as the NES, C64, Atari et al all had big chunky graphics. When entering buildings things become worse still, with the game display the size of an actual Gameboy screen it is hard to see what is what. Sometimes I had to focus for a second or two just to find where my character was amongst the tiny box and furniture sprites.

    The music score is cool though. For the sound track Pavinciano brought in 3 renowned Chiptune composers; Leonard "FreakyDNA" Paul, Jake "Vert" Kaufman and Matt "Norrin Radd" Creamer. They have done a bang up job too, with catchy ditties playing throughout your adventures. The track clearly inspired by the music to Paperboy was an early highlight.

    Parody Fatigue. Not something you may be familiar with now, but after spending an hour or so rushing around the streets of Theftopolis, you will start to feel the effects. Retro City Rampage simply bombards you with references to other materials, movies, games, people, places, that you feel like you are watching 5 or 6 TV channels at the same time. I found the constant stop-start gameplay style quite off-putting. Stages seem to be split into small sections, with constant cut scenes and yet more references. The problem is the references aren't funny. One bad guy clearly copied from Sonic the Hedgehog's long-standing nemesis is called Doctor Von Buttnik. This is the kind of unfunny humour that prevails throughout the game, and it becomes tiresome fast. In fact almost every single building, object, character or stage has a reference, sometimes more than one, to another game or a movie. It becomes too much after a while. There are no fresh ideas on display here anywhere, and while there are moments of creativity in the way you tackle a level, everything here feels like a poor man's version of the material that inspired it. The whole game looks, sounds, and plays like a slightly polished free browser game. Like one of those awful Epic / Scary movie parody flicks the whole thing is a collection of skits thrown together to make a whole. Unfortunately it just gets boring quite quickly, and when the gags aren't even funny, it becomes tiresome to play.

    I was really looking forward to Retro City Rampage, it was genuinely one of the top 3 games of 2012 that I was looking forward to. Unfortunately it has been a massive disappointment. I figured I was the target audience for this game, after all I love 8-bit gaming, collect and play NES games, enjoy humour in games, and I get every reference in the game due to being an 80's kid. Yet the whole package left me deeply unsatisfied. The game tries too hard to cram as many jokes in in a short a time as possible, but it backfires and shows the game up for what it essentially is, a mildly amusing browser game to spend 20 minutes on, then find something deeper, and better to play.

    You are much better off getting your NES fix from the excellent, and free, PC game Abobo's Big Adventure, which will give you an hours worth of fun, and is far more humorous, and true to it's reference material than RCR.    … Full Review »
  2. Noldster
    9
    If you grew up loving games like River City Ransom, Metal Gear, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the NES than you owe it to yourself to buy this game. The 80's video game and pop culture references are everywhere. I play a lot of classic console games but many times the gameplay does not live up to the nostalgia. Retro City Rampage brings back all of the wonderful feelings of gaming in the 80's but with enough modern gameplay enhancements to keep players feeling engaged. There's even a simple cover system. This works great on PC with an XBOX controller (buttons are auto-mapped and displayed on screen). This is a great gaming experience that pays homage to the best games of my generation.… Full Review »
  3. Wendigo2064
    5
    The nostalgic pandering to my generation is obviously the game's selling point, but it's also my biggest problem with the whole experience. Perhaps I can't honestly call "Retro City Rampage" bad, but I can call it dumb. I know so many people, like myself, grew up with these other games, but where's the... well, new game? This is Wayan's brothers territory-- not a shred of original content, but plenty of references to something better. More often than not, the fun of "Retro City Rampage" is getting the references... but that's the end of the joke. There are hundreds of gamer in-jokes, but very few actually impact gameplay. Some, like a poorly designed bit-trip runner sidequest, are so shoddily put together you'll want to just go play the real game instead. Underneath all this referential nonsense is a perfectly decent sandbox arcade game, but it takes some digging to find it buried under the thoughtless parody. The controls are tight, the game has depth, the world is just the right size for plenty of delicious secrets... but something slipped in the game aping. It makes me sad to see indie devs sinking under the weight of referential humor, rather than simply trying to make a good product. There is so little value in a joke like "Look, there's the game genie! Get it?" That a decently made game becomes irritating. But that may be just me. For anyone who wants a trip down memory lane coupled with a decent arcade game, well here ya go. Personally, I'll stick to indie games with some originality.… Full Review »
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