I’ve always loved mash up games, there’s just something incredibly fun about combining two genres. Combining two incredibly disjointed genres is even better. Look at Puzzle Quest. Half Bejeweled puzzler, half RPG, and generally perceived as incredible fun. You know what else would be fun? A rhythm based side-scrolling shooter. I know pretty crazy right? How would that even work? Well it seems that 24 Caret Games debut title, Retro/Grade, has the answer. Announced by Matt Gilgenbach, co-founder of 24 Caret, on the US PlayStation Blog, Retro/Grade is described as the first game played entirely in reverse.
What it boils down to is this. You play as Rick Rocket (yes, that seriously is his name), an ace fighter pilot who’s just saved the universe. However, the explosion at the end of his mission caused some kind of space-time, timey-wimey rift thingy that is propelling him backwards through the course of his mission. Of course when he was fighting through the mission he dodged shots and took out the enemy with shots of his own. Now going backwards you have to make sure he makes the same shots while still dodging the enemies. Does that make any sense at all? No? Oh just watch the video, it pretty much explains it all.
So now that (I hope) you understand what this game is about, lets share some opinions shall we? It really does seem that 24 Caret has managed to mix a side scrolling shooter with a rhythm game. The inclusion of guitar controller support is a nice touch, assuming that it’s well implemented. This game already has me excited, and hopefully I’ll have picked up a PS3 by the time this is released. As no release date has yet been announced for the IGF nominated game it seems the odds are in my favour at the moment.
Source: US PlayStation Blog