Four in February: Open World Destruction

I never did much in GTA III. I don't think I even bothered with missions. All I ever focused upon was trying to increase my threat level as much as I could before losing. A shallow way to appreciate one of the most influential titles of the gaming industry, to be sure, but, in an effort to rectify that mistake, I decided to go and play GTA III properly an 8-bit indie title inspired by it.

Retro City Rampage DX is little more than a collection of nostalgic bits lovingly crammed together in the pixel city of Theftropolis, where nobody locks their car door. Your name is The Player. You enjoy senseless violence, reckless driving, wreckful driving, weapons of all kinds, and iced tea... a lot. While working for a crime syndicate, you steal a phone booth, fly into the future, and, well, go back to doing what you do. It's totally optional to care enough to help Doc get his klunker running again, though your future self will provide a compelling argument in his favor.

Collecting parts for Doc Choc involves tackling throwbacks to numerous games, while the arcade challenges are basically killing sprees using a particular weapon. Playing through the story will unlock additional references, weapons, challenges, and alternative characters.

Sweat Bomber and Bates take after the Splosion Man titles.

It's not really a pretty game, and it doesn't take long to notice how saturated RCRDX truly is with references. The action and dialogue reminds me of the Junkions, constantly stringing together famous one-liners and transitioning from one parody to the next while providing little to no genuinely original content. Still, I think RCRDX does a swell job of making all of this they're own. It's not half-assing anything here, and the occasional jump in difficulty is far from problematic. Most play a game like this to indulge in their past, and that past has a reputation for being what we now call "Nintendo Hard." Granted, it never reaches that extreme point, though I had my moments where I believed otherwise.

Screenshots like this one initially caused me to hesitate on the purchase.

If you're my age, older, or simply interested in what is arguably the best generation of the industry, then there's really no reason to miss out on this. Yeah, you'll groan at the excessive amount of cheese. Just click through it quickly and enjoy the action, because there's plenty, and it changes enough to keep things fresh. I especially loved revisiting Smash TV, a run and gun that portrays a fairly accurate depiction of the future.

In 1999, toasters and VCRs become the globally-accepted forms of currency,
while television is a strong, thriving medium.

There's twenty achievements (I like having achievements for games like this one), customization for The Player's appearance, display filters to recreate the experience of playing on twenty or so different consoles/handhelds, an arcade of mini-games to unlock characters for free roaming mode, and a fantastic soundtrack of chip music by the talented trio of Freaky DNA, Norrin Radd, and Jake "virt" Kaufman. My favorite tracks include Half Steppin', Nordic Night, Betting Zoo, and Beach Ninjas, but one of the radio stations in-game also provides virt's album FX3, which is free to download. The actual soundtrack itself isn't expensive, either. It's sold as a digital album for under $6 (in U.S. dollars, that is).

Retro City Rampage DX is a mere $10, typically sells for half that during Steam sales, and shows up periodically in Humble Bundles. It has received positive reviews from nearly every reputable game critic, in addition to the scumbag source you're reading now, and provides enjoyment suitable for short and long sessions of play. My only gripe is with its game cards and badges on Steam.

  Just look at this shit!

Fifteen for each one of those six hideous portraits. Fifteen! Did there really need to be two sleeping and two plumber cards? The big head mode emoticons and near-empty profile backgrounds that randomly come with those badges are just as pitiful. If one wishes to show their love for this indie, I highly recommend fan art, instead. Don't let this discourage you from the actual game though.

And with that, my Four in February for the year is complete. Quickly, too. I had enough time to squeeze in a fifth title, Goat Simulator, because I was told to play it.

Goat Simulator is another open world title with little more than a handful of goals to provide the player with any sort of direction. Completing it is really just a matter of actually earning all of its achievements. Doing so will allow you to explore everything Coffee Stain Studios has to offer. There's 106 achievements spanning across all of the DLC, with two-thirds of it attainable through the original and its MMO counterpart. The only one I didn't bother with between the two of them? Flappy Goat, because even I don't hate myself that much.

I guess that constitutes as finishing a fifth game, doesn't it? By the way, Goat Simulator's senseless destruction shtick loses its charm pretty quickly, so I only suggest adding it to your library if you're willing to put in the same effort for those achievements as I did (except for scoring ten points in Flappy Goat). Silly music. Great humor. Lots of goats. It's the total package. Give it a go, why not?

Microwave Goat is best goat.
(and most evil construct)