This being the fabled day of the big Retro City Rampage news, we source the news from the Playstation blog of all places. Yes, there will be an 8-bit rampage on PS3 and PS Vita!They warned us, VBlank Entertainment that is. They even had a video to outline how big the news hitting us today would be, honestly, we weren’t expecting this at all! Retro City Rampage will be coming to PS3, the PS Vita as well as Steam; before it was just Wii Ware and Xbox Live Arcade. Is there anywhere it’s not going to be available!?During the announcement, Brian Provinciano of VBlank states that the “PS Vita has been a dream to develop for as well.

Original Source: ‘Retro City Rampage’ Is Smashing It Up On PC, PS Vita And PS3 Too

This Article was originally posted on our sister site, The Indie Game Magazine written by Chris Priestman.

Well this is quite interesting indeed! Not a few days after PEGI rated Fez for release in Europe, we stumble across Spelunky as being rated as well! The game, which is a more graphically enhanced version of Derek Yu’s PC Spelunky (along with other features I believe) has been in development for what has seemed like ages so, now that it has been rated, we should surely rejoice in the fact that it will be released soon, as with Fez, right?

Hooray! It’s time for my prediction post for next year’s most popular and well received indie games! Those of you who have been with us here at DIYGamer will remember my 2010 and 2011 editions where I was correct for a few of each prediction posts.

Brian Provinciano of Vblank Entertainment has just unveiled another new trailer for his sprawling 8bit open city parody game, Retro City Rampage. This time we’re treated to a sneaky peak at one of the games many hidden bonuses. Take a look at this trailer to see a first glimpse at ‘Splosion Man in Retro City Rampage, both as a retro demake of ‘Splosion Man, and then you get to use his splode attack in the main game.

Long awaited retro-homage, pixelated open world ‘em up, Retro City Rampage, is nearing release. This started as a part time hobby project for Brian Provinciano of Vblank Entertainment, but it has now grown into something much bigger. He visited Nottingham last week to join in on the fun at GameCity, and I borrowed a few minutes of his time to shove a microphone in his face and ask him some questions. Here’s what he said:

DIYgamer: How many people make up Vblank Entertainment?

Provinciano: I’m the full time guy, and I’ve got another artist helping out, and three music guys.

DIYgamer: It’s a long time you’ve been working on this game, how long is it in total?

Provinciano: It’s been two years full time, and part time: many, many years.

DIYgamer: It seems like a real labour of love? It’s been in your life a long time.

Provinciano: Absolutely, I don’t know how I’ve live when it’s done, it will be really very weird. But it’s a pure labour of love, it’s my dream game. The homage thing is because I got into the industry because of specific games that I love, and I dreamed to one day work on my own Commander Keen, Mario, whatever. So by doing this, I’m really able to integrate doing all of these different genres, all these different styles of games, in this one game. The open world was the perfect medium for it.

DIYgamer: Are there any references to old games that decided to take out, because maybe it didn’t quite work, or it wasn’t as funny as it seemed?

Provinciano: Yeah, there were a few things. I really focussed on fun, and there were some joke that would have been funny, and when I tell them to people they will just laugh like crazy, but they just didn’t really work. Like a Desert Bus joke, the Penn and Teller Desert Bus game, I had designed a mission around that, but it’s just not fun. There’s no point in torturing people, because they’re not going to find it that funny.

DIYgamer: What platforms is it coming to?

Provinciano: It’s coming to XBLA and WiiWare. There’s a possibility of some others, but we’ll see.

DIYgamer: WiiWare? I’ve not heard a huge number of success stories from there recently.

Provinciano: No. I’m purely doing it for the fans. WiiWare is dead. There’s really not much money to be made on there. I’m really just doing it for the fans, and I’m really appreciative of the fans that have been supportive of this. I’ve received a lot of flaming from people that are mad because it’s been delayed or whatever. It’s not the best business advice to be releasing on WiiWare at this point, so it’s just for the fans, I hope they appreciate it.

DIYgamer: It seems to me because of the retro aesthetic, you’ve been able to cram a huge amount of things in there, because it doesn’t take you a huge amount of time to generate assets.

Provinciano: Yeah, the pixel art stuff has been real handy. It’s really amazing how quickly I can throw together an animation. If I’m making a mission, and I’m writing some dialogue, it really is am improv process, just like comedians on stage. I’ll be whipping up a mission, and then as I’m playing it, I’ll think: It would be really great if I could add this little animation there, and I can do that, that’s a huge advantage I have being an artist/designer/programmer. There other thing there too is that once I made a much more data driven system for art, I was able to add much more animation to it, on the technical aspect.

DIYgamer: So you’re on the home stretch now, what are your plans post release? What might your next projects consist of?

Provinciano: I’ve got a lot of ideas. I will be busy for the next while porting, and finishing up the Wii version, and marketing and all that. But I’ve got ideas. There are two specific open world games that aren’t Retro City that I want to do. I don’t think I’ll do those right away, because I think I want to do something different next, then I’ll go back to doing more open world stuff later.

DIYgamer: Projected release date?

Provinciano: It’ll come out in the beginning of 2012. Possibly late January or Feburary.

DIYgamer: Thanks a lot.

[Vblank Entertainment]

The guys from Vblank Entertainment uploaded a new trailer to their Vimeo account a few days ago this time showing off a new playable “character” Biffman! Thriftopolis City’s very own super hero. I mean, every major city needs a super hero right?

The trailer shows off all the hilariously retro chaos we’ve come to expect out of Retro City Rampage only this time it’s from the perspective of a super hero. Naturally this means you get you’re very own specialized car, the Biffmobile, the ability to throw Biffarangs (awesome!) and even a Biffcave to play in!

8-bit throwback Retro City Rampage for XBLA is planning to take PAX Prime 2011 by storm August 26-28.  To commemorate, Vblank has an exciting promotion going on. Players can first try to win 1 of 1,000 girl or 1,000 guy avatar t-shirts by signing up to the game’s Twitter or Facebook, attending PAX Prime, or get 1 of the 3 DIYGamer has to giveaway for free today!

What’s more, those 2,000 men and women have a chance to be 1 of 10 people to win a copy of Retro City Rampage for XBLA free if they share photos on Twitter or Facebook of their avatar wearing the t-shirt!

There will also be free avatar t-shirt promos handed out at PAX Prime to the earliest visitors, so mark it on your calendar, survival guide, or whatever you are using to plan out your PAX excursion for next weekend.

Here’s all the details:

* Retro City Rampage @ PAX Booth #3011
* Free EXCLUSIVE Avatar T-Shirt (with chances to win 1 of 10 copies of the game when it’s released)
* Play Retro City Rampage
* Play Arcade Mode Challenge Rounds for prizes
* Grab more swag!
* Another HUGE booth surprise will be announced next week!

* Developer Brian Provinciano will also be speaking at PAX Dev on August 25 on the Making of Retro City Rampage.

Finally, DIYGamer is giving away THREE Avatar t-shirt codes now! The only catch: comment on our Facebook page under this article and share the post with your friends! Not sure why Retro City Rampage is getting all the hype? Check out the video here:

[DIYGamer correspondent Ken Ellis gives us thoughts from his demo session with Retro City Rampage (new screens here.)]

I got my hands on a little Retro City Rampage action tonight during the Xbox Live showcase event at this year’s Comic-Con (video coming soon.) If you have ever played a game, ever, then you will probably like this one.

RCR follows the tale of a thug named “Player” living in Thieftropolis who answers an ad to work as a henchman. The game picks up in his third year of henching. The Jester is planning a heist and he needs your help on this one. Obviously the plan goes awry and adventure follows.

The best part of this game is that about every five seconds there is a reference to a classic video game from yester-year and a few movies too. While playing through the game for about 10 minutes, I was bombarded with tongue-in-check scenes from Mega Man and Duck Hunt and characters from Frogger, Bill and Ted, and Back to the Future (even DUCK TALES!) while going through familiar locales like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sewers and Bomberman areas. There was even a quick MK “Toasty!” that popped into view.

The game feels like a straight de-make of Grand Theft Auto, where you’re a random henchman who can beat up or run over anyone and get chased by the cops. It has clear way-points to guide you and simple controls that let start enjoying everything pretty quick, and I mean everything! In the first few scenes, I frantically ran through there were no less than five different styles of NES gameplay. I’m sure you get it by now, but RCR bleeds retro from a wound that surely can never be closed.

Anyone can and should play this game, but for the more experienced gamer there are plenty of wonderful and humorous gems to get you going back mentally to your early gaming days.

Retro City Rampage is coming out later this summer on Xbox Live and sometime in the fall for the WiiWare crowd. Definitely something to check out!

Vblank developer Brian Provinciano emailed DIYGamer some juicy details about Retro City Rampage‘s Comic-Con appearance this week. Retro City Rampage will be playable at Microsoft’s Xbox Lounge (the Edge Room at the Hard Rock Hotel) Saturday and Sunday. No pass will be required.

This event marks the debut of the Xbox 360 screen filters and pixel shaders which give it a retro tube TV look. The game promises over 40 vehicles and 25 weapons and power ups and over 80 story missions and arcade challenges. Brian encourages gamers to explore Theftropolis City or “pop a cap in your friends’ scores to educate them in the finer points of SUPER CRIME” in this Grand Theft Auto meets Super Mario Bros. 8-bit open-world experience.

Brian assured me that Retro City Rampage will be coming to XBLA in a few months followed by a WiiWare release a bit later. Those who can’t make it to Comic-Con have a chance to check it out at PAX Prime in August.

While we wait anxiously for the weekend Comic-Con coverage, here’s Brian’s last live interview and demo, with someone you guys MAY remember:

Now you can easily spot these two super dudes: Retro City Rampage’s Brian Provinciano or DIYGamer alumnus Peter Eykemans! Ask them for free t-shirts; they are the kind of fellows that will probably give you the one off their backs.

And in case the footage doesn’t help, here’s some brand new screenshots:

Retro City Rampage is an open-world action parody video game, the thing I’d rather play instead of guessing whether facial gestures suggest I should doubt people or call them liars (L.A. Noire). The new Retro City Rampage trailer speaks for itself. In full spoiler disclaimer: either watch it a few times like I did, or read about what I gathered from watching it.

The beginning of the video shows that killing people in a row gives a combo bonus -nothing that revealing. The bulk of the video shows off a demo of Arcade Mode, where players can destroy stuff to increase their score. Achieving a set score nets players bronze, silver, and gold medals. Gamers can cycle through weapons with a quick flip of the shoulder button, keeping the action intense and keeping the player in-game while switching his or her options.

The Ion Tapper AS5 weapon makes a debut, which I have a feeling is the long snaky like weapon. It helps create a lot of mayhem quickly, thereby quickly racking up points to earn the medals. Amidst the action, the player also seems to be able to counter, increasing the skill required to maximize one’s play through Retro City Rampage.

Here’s the video:

Then again, this could be overanalyzing what looks like good old fashioned fun. I’m certainly looking forward to running into Vblank soon and seeing more of this crazy awesome game myself. While we have to wait until Summer 2011 for this to release on XBLA, check out the all of coverage we have of Retro City Rampage so far here to keep you busy.