D3 Publisher

Retro City Rampage was developed by VBlank Entertainment and published by D3 Publisher. It was released January 2, 2013 for 1200 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

One of the great genres of modern gaming is the open-world game. While quite common nowadays, this modern gaming staple is something that was virtually unseen in the days of 8-bit gaming. But what if there were open-world games in the 80’s? That’s where Retro City Rampage comes in. The game follows a character known simply as The Player, the henchman of an evil villain who is accidentally transported back in time. With the help of time traveler (and obvious Back to the Future) reference Doc Choc, The Player must explore the city of Theftropolis to find parts for a new time machine. Created by Brian Provinciano, this Grand Theft Auto-inspired game faithfully re-imagines the genre in 8-bit form, and parodies everything along the way.

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XBLA players will be able to ring in the New Year next week by partying like it’s 1999…or 1989…or any other year from the ’80s or ’90s, for that matter: developer Vblank Entertainment Inc. has revealed that Retro City Rampage will finally release on Xbox Live Arcade on January 2. The game first released on PSN and PC in October, but the announced XBLA and WiiWare versions were pushed back indefinitely.

Brian Provinciano, the man “almost entirely” responsible for developing Retro City Rampage, announced last month that an improved XBLA version was complete and had entered certification, but he was unable to provide a concrete release date at the time. Provinciano used the time between the October release on PSN/PC and the game’s November certification bid to tinker away on the XBLA version, ensuring it would be what he calls “a better experience.”

The retro-tinged open world game was designed from the beginning to require players “to stop and strategize” while playing. Unfortunately, he received player feedback following the October release that the game was frustrating when players entered into certain missions with “just fists and guns.” Additional tutorials and tip screens that show after a player has failed a mission a certain number of times have been added to the XBLA release in an attempt to smooth out the experience. Further softening the difficulty are additional checkpoints sprinkled throughout the game.

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Developer Might and Delight has announced that it plans to make its puzzle-platformer, Pid, more accessible by adding an Easy Mode to the game’s existing Normal and Hard …
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Pid was developed by Might and Delight and published by D3 Publisher. It was released on October 31, 2012 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Pid developer Might and Delight doesn’t much care for you. In fact, it’s entirely within the realm of possibility that the studio outright hates you. That may sound harsh, but how else can you explain the extreme lengths to which Might and Delight has gone to ensure death comes early and often for you in the developer’s new XBLA platformer?

Yes, creating a game in which modern visuals are intermingled with classic platforming charm and challenge was a premeditated act on Might and Delight’s part. And, yes, it’s a design philosophy that many developers of digital games have successfully adopted over the past several years. The team behind Pid, however, had its collective foot planted so heavily on the “player death” pedal throughout development,that the game’s surreal, charming atmosphere is an unrecognizable mess of roadkill by the time the gameplay finishes repeatedly mowing the player down hundreds of times. Pid’s world is an imaginatively oddball setting that beseeches the player to carry on and discover what lies on the other side of the next loading screen (more on that later), but it’s a world so fixated on presenting constant, frustrating challenges that no amount of audio-visual stimuli can convince one to keep on keepin’ on.

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Motocross racer Jeremy McGrath, 40, plans to donate his portion of the profits made off of last month’s XBLA and PSN release Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad to charity. McGrath’s haul from sales of the game will go towards “Be the Match.” The bone marrow registry charity maintains was crucial in finding wife Kim McGrath, 36, a donor this past week after doctors diagnosed her with leukemia back in May.

It has been a harrowing couple of years for Mrs. McGrath. Two years ago she was informed she had breast cancer, a disease that the American Cancer Society estimates estimates there being 226,870 new cases of in 2012 in the United States. One in eight women are believed to suffer from “invasive” cases of the disease during their lifetimes, and the chances of dying from it are about one in 36. As terrifying as those numbers are, the good news is that they are on the decline. There are currently two-and-a-half million survivors in the U.S., including the racing star’s wife.

She fought through the disease, enduring what she said in a blog post were “months of treatments and several surgeries.” Fifteen months later she said that she “was finally getting back on [her] feet.” The breast cancer survivor, having had the chance to recover and regrow her hair to the point at which it was once again “cute,” had reached a point at which she had turned her focus to getting on with the rest of her life.

Sadly, another excruciating battle with a serious illness — one that approximately 44,600 were diagnosed with last year in the United States — was on the horizon. More chemo was needed right away, and the mother of two would need a bone marrow transplant. Hospital visits lasting an entire month were in order, and her hair would fall out again. But that was nothing compared to the very real danger of losing her life if a donor was not found.

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Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad Racing will fishtail onto Xbox Live Arcade on June 27 for 800 Microsoft Points, says Reverb Publishing. Developed by 2XL Games, the off-road racing title …
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Gone are the days when publishers needed to have an actual launch date hammered out before releasing a “launch trailer.” D3 Publisher and 2XL Games have released just …
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