After playing a GTA game and Bro Force recently, I decided it was natural to pick up this next (I like making connections, ok?). Its scattershot approach kept me on the back foot most of the time, but it’s a satisfying little game.

Let me explain those connections. RCR homages the classic top-down GTA games, but improves on them with police being more lenient and your vehicles usually being able to bump others out of the way without affecting your speed or direction too much. These might seem like minor changes but since necessarily a lot of play time is spent navigating the open world cityscape, making that traversal experience smoother makes the game feel a lot friendlier.

The Bro Force connection is that both make heavy, crushingly heavy, references to 80s and 90s pop culture. This one leans more specifically on Back to the Future and various video game touchstones to add flavour to its ultra-cheesy GTA-esque scenario. References for references’ sake don’t impress me too much but it was amusing to see the ways in which they’d been obscured for parodic reasons.

The writing is otherwise fun, apart from certain “satirical” misogynistic scenes that were off-putting in a similar way to Bro Force’s satire for me. Oh well, before you know it you’ve bounced off to some other zany setpiece; as I said up top, the game is scattershot with its references, its gameplay, the plot everything. If something doesn’t land it moves on quickly and you’re seeing something completely different. Action minigames pop up frequently and even when a section is difficult, the game so quickly starts you again for another go that I was never frustrated.

Speaking of minigames, it was a nice surprise to find the collaborative Meat Boy and Bit Trip Runner games within the game world. The Runner one is similar to its source game, but the Meat Boy one evokes the Virtual Boy and behind-the-back racing games. The respective characters can be unlocked for Free mode, but I didn’t spend any time there.

I like how packed with content it is, with so many little things to see and do (the main campaign doesn’t outstay its welcome though). It also looks and sounds great, retro-inspired and chunky but modern and smooth to play. And what’s most impressive is that it was mostly made by just one guy! It’s also great on 3DS, with the lower screen taking on a large map and other UI elements plus the useful weapon switcher.