When Canadian developer Brian Provinciano decided to spoof “Grand Theft Auto” (Rockstar Games’ ode to unabashed criminality), he did it in the most retrotastic way possible.

“Retro City Rampage” is an 8-bit open-world adventure in the style of “GTA,” but packed with 80s gaming and pop culture references, like DuckTales, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, “Punch-Out!!” and “Super Mario Bros.” Imagine an arcade game with missions – and power-ups! And, of course, you play the bad guy, as detailed in the game description:

“THE PLAYER is out for a friendly frolic of CRIME CAPERS when suddenly ambushed by EVIL GOOD GUYS. They will stop at nothing to end his RAMPAGE OF DOOM threatening the citizens of Theftropolis City. Are YOU bad enough to defeat the EVIL GOOD GUYS?”

A demo of the game debuted at the PAX 2010 video game conference in September, where it won and was nominated for a number of awards, including Machinima’s Best Indie Title of the Show, and Destructoid’s Game of the Show.

“Retro City Rampage” will debut on Xbox Live Arcade in summer 2011, with a Wiiware version scheduled for fall 2011.

Now, a request for the sequel: an 8-bit retro “Red Dead Redemption,” please!

Retro City Rampage OFFICIAL Trailer from Vblank on Vimeo.

We may have mentioned a few (hundred) times that gamers love nostalgia. Just witness the blitz of Mario-madness this year celebrating the 25th anniversary of “Super Mario Bros.” But when it comes to computer hardware, they can be downright fanatical.

The Commodore 64 debuted in 1982, in the infancy of the home computer revolution. It was a beige brick of 8-bit awesomeness that outsold both Apple and IBM on its way to becoming the best-selling computer model of all time. It was priced competitively, boasted thousands of software titles and really introduced mainstream America to the possibilities of home computing. And someday we hope to be able to forgive it for pushing our beloved Texas Instruments TI-99/4A out of the market.

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The first video game I ever played was “Pong,” which already makes me seem ancient, but did you know true gaming aficionados date the first video game to 1958? Yes, the same year that brought us the Edsel also birthed an industry that generated $20 billion dollars last year in the U.S. alone.

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Activision’s “Call of Duty: Black Ops” had a great opening month in sales. Like, really great. The greatest in the history of America, in fact, with 8.4 million copies of the Cold War-era shooter sold in November. And LEGO-ized games are huge right now, too, covering popular franchises like Star Wars, Harry Potter and Indiana Jones, and even original properties, like the recent “LEGO Universe.” So, naturally, we now have …

“LEGO: Black Ops!” Yeah, okay, it’s not a real game (yet). But this awesome stop-motion animation from Custard Productions is such a masterpiece of plastic gore and cute mayhem that surely someone is hard at work making it real. Right??

Spike TV’s Video Game Awards don’t get a lot of respect from gamers. Maybe that’s partly to be expected – it’s the People’s Choice Awards for video games, basically, so it’s a bit of a popularity contest. But so what? Any show that starts with Neil Patrick Harris gunning down a troupe of white-coated singer-dancers can’t be all bad.

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There’s a new Lara Croft! And she looks kind of … dirty. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But you can expect legions of fan boys to weigh in on her between now and the time Square Enix releases the brand-new “Tomb Raider” teased this week.

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When we took a look at the upcoming Back to the Future game a few months ago, it was a mere wisp of an idea, with little more than a few screen shots to whet our appetite. But people were hopeful about the graphic adventure, featuring the voice of Christopher Lloyd and developed in part by the film trilogy’s screenwriter. And now that Telltale Games has released the first trailer, it looks like that hope was well-placed, indeed.

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Remember playing Star Wars as a kid? In my neighborhood we’d blast the Star Wars LP through someone’s window and pretend to be Luke, Leia and Han Solo in the backyard. But now we’ll all be able to live our Star Wars fantasies without ever having to leave the apartment. Or wear pants!

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Kinect for the Xbox 360 (“You are the controller!”) is a must-have this holiday season … at least that’s what Microsoft is hoping. But so far there really aren’t any “killer apps” compelling people to buy. Fortunately, enterprising gamers around the world are creating their own.

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Still smarting from the news that North Korea’s nuclear program is probably much further advanced than anyone knew, the world now breathlessly awaits its neighbor South Korea’s response to an attack that left two soldiers dead. Meanwhile, developer Kaos Studios is plugging away at a first-person shooter that seems … well, if not eerily prescient, then certainly eerie, at least.

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