As I announced in the last blog post, Retro City Rampage is coming to PS3 and PS Vita! But today I bring more great news…

Recently in Toronto we held an amazing event called PlayStation <3 Canada to promote and support Canadian indie game developers. In attendance were us here at Vblank Entertainment, Drinkbox Studios (Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack), Queasy Games (Sound Shapes), ][ Games (Dyad) and more. It was a blast! For me, the highlight was finally giving fans a chance to see and play the PS Vita version of Retro City Rampage for the first time. I’ve been going on for a while about how amazing it looks on the PS Vita, and now you can see what it looks like for yourself.

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Those of you who are worried that the characters might be too small on the PS Vita screen needn’t be! It supports two screen modes. The standard mode designed specifically for the PS Vita scales everything up and ensures that the characters and everything else are easy to see. Alternatively, the second mode uses smaller pixels but displays the entire 16:9 widescreen image and supports the TV/arcade screen borders of the PS3 counterpart, so it’s entirely up to you.

The PS Vita’s touchscreen also adds a nice… touch. RCR is a love letter to the days of the d-pad, for core gamers who grew up with controllers and buttons –but that doesn’t mean that the touchscreen can’t be used where it makes sense. It really makes the menus, minigames and shops faster and more convenient to navigate, going hand in hand with RCR’s overall design philosophy, that is to emit nostalgia while still catering to our evolved expectations of games. This extends from the added touchscreen functionality to the game design and tutorials. For example, you won’t need to flip through a manual or call a tips hotline to figure out what to do ;). But if you’re an absolute purist, you can still play the game 100% with the buttons.

I’m willing to bet that if you have a PS Vita, you also have a PS3. Well, you’re going to be exceptionally excited to hear about just how good friends the PS3 and PS Vita versions are. If you’re like me, you want the best of both worlds. You want to be able to play your favorite games on your nice TV from the couch but still take them with you everywhere you go. With Retro City Rampage, your dreams have come true! It supports continuous play so you can play the game on your couch, save it, and continue where you left off from your PS Vita (and vice versa).

Not only can the PS3 and PS Vita versions share save games, they also share a single set of scoreboards. If you’re rad enough to blast a high score onto the board, your replay will be up there for everyone to watch no matter which platform. Show your friends how a game wizard plays Retro City Rampage!

While the PS Vita version of Retro City Rampage boasts everything that its PS3 counterpart does, I had fun making a few tweaks to tailor the experience to the handheld. The PS3 version supports tube TV simulation filters which curve the screen and add scanlines (allowing you to play on an LCD TV with the feel of an old CRT); similarly, the PS Vita version supports classic dot-matrix simulation filters giving it a heavy dose of Game Boy/Game Gear nostalgia. I absolutely love it and it’s my filter of choice when playing the game. If the LCD grid simulation alone isn’t retro enough for you, you can also change the color mode. The color modes let you make Retro City Rampage even more retro with options such as “Brick Handheld” (yellow-green monochrome) and “Virtual Burn” (all red), “Blurst Processor,” “SEE=64,” “PC DOS EGA” and a dozen more. These are also available in the PS3 version!

One question you’re going to ask is “WHEN!?” I don’t have a fixed release date just yet, but it’ll be out as soon as possible. I’m fixing the final bugs and working around the clock to get it into your hands as soon as I can. Keep your eyes peeled here on the PlayStation.Blog!