Odds are if you own a PS4 or Vita, you?ve played a retro styled game or two (or three, or four). Odds are that you stopped giving pixelated retro inspired games the time of day. I can?t blame you for that. I?m on the same page, but there are certain ones that still stick out to me. Vblank?s Retro City Rampage is one such game, a massive undertaking that is more or less an 8-bit styled Grand Theft Auto type of game, filled with absurdities and references to other games and pop culture. It?s a veritable parody, defying its own retro nature and yet being clearly defined by it. It?s also amazing a 4 way cross-buy game — the only one that I know of — on PS4, PS3, Vita, and PSP.
For years, I’ve been itching to see what Brian Provinciano and his small team would get up to next, so when the chance rolled around to check out Shakedown Hawaii at PSX 2016, I had to stop by. Shakedown Hawaii is like a step to the next generation from Retro City Rampage, going from 8-bit to a pseudo 16-bit world. Instead of being a series of sprites layered on the top of a pixel map, Shakedown Hawaii has a little more depth, with buildings and objects in the background allowing the player character to walk behind them. Brian explained it all to me in a bunch of technical jargon that I didn’t quite understand, but regardless of not quite grasping the details of it all, it’s fascinating to listen to him talk about his games and the passion he has for these projects. Shaking...