Shakedown: Hawaii

A GTA 1 and 2 inspired crime 'em up tycoon game with quick and simple arcade gameplay, colourful SNES style graphics and crunchy SEGA Genesis chiptunes.
You play as an angry old "Business man" who's company is going down the toilet so you rebuild it using several less than legal methods.
Also has a ton of very true satire about how crap and expensive everything has become nowadays.

I don't regret the three bucks I spent on sale. Finished it in about 12 hours, no replay value, but it was fun while it lasted.
Solid GTA 2 style gameplay. If you liked that, you'll like this, not much more to add there.
The humor isn't going to hit for some people but 'out-of-touch-boomer deals with modern world' works for me. The arc with the wanna-be-rapper/failson has been done better elsewhere, but it was minor enough it didn't break anything.
The property buying mechanics are mostly a progress bar. You need to engage enough to buy the plot relevant properties, but it doesn't really do anything beyond that. I never needed to visit a gun store with the ambient pickups available and I think that's the only business that does something. I'm not mad about it, it was fun to watch the map turn bought, and I did 100% the property buying, but I felt disappointed there was no in-game acknowledgement beyond the achievement popping. But that was really my only disappointment with it, other than that it landed pretty much exactly on expectations as advertised.

A great parody.
Lots of stuff to do, lots of fun to have.

I recommend this game with one BIG and PULSING "IF".
You will probably enjoy it IF you played Retro City Rampage and liked it.

When compared to RCR, this game is rather boring.
Gone are the references to other games and their mechanics, and in place we have... late stage capitalism.
Instead of the player using Sonic shoes to press a trafic light button, we have a guy going to the store and learning about shrinkflation and targeted ads.

The story is about a guy stuck in the 80s, who discovers that all his business are losing revenue to other businesses, so he has to rebuild his empire by learning about capitalism strategies like MLMs, targeted ads, sponsored content, store credit cards, accumulating points that expire too quickily, ingredient replacements and pro-enviromental choices that so happen to reduce his costs.
The story is supposed to be comical, but its all stuff that actually happens today, right now.
There are two other characters that you control, but it feels they are there just to parody GTA 5.
The ending is kinda meh, as you "defeat" other main villains over the game, and the final boss if a guy that shows up from nowhere. Then you get a prize and the game ends.

The gameplay is mostly the same as RCR, but missing a few features like powerups. For some reason, stomping and the spread shot from Contra are still there.
There are several weapons, but most of the time you will only use two or three of them, because they are either too weak or too dangerous to use due self-damage.
Either way, eventually enemies start to get bulletproof and you have to melee them or use explosive weapons.

You can say the "main" gameplay is the business management, but there isn't much to it. You get money daily, then you use that money to buy more businesses or to add multipliers to existing ones like MLM, credit cards, gift cards, stealth ads and more, so you get more money to buy more businesses.
As long you buy stuff everytime you get paid, you will finish the game with all businesses.
And no idea how "daily" works in this game. Sometimes it only paid after missions, sometimes it didn't, sometimes it paid after a few minutes of running around, sometimes it didn't pay after several minutes of standing still.

All minigames from RCR are gone. The only thing left is glutes workout session, where you press a button at the right time and don't get anything if you pass.

Graphicaly, the game looks very nice. There isn't much to add to it.

To sum it up, the game is good, but rather boring when compared to RCR. By removing the gaming parody, it becomes a basic GTA demake.
Looks good, plays ok, still prefer RCR. Buy RCR.

This is an underrated indie gem that deserves to stand out among the crowd. As someone who's played Retro City Rampage in the past, this game plays a bit differently from that game, but I personally think this game is a lot more fun than the former. It has it's own unique mechanics that make it stand out, and is an overall stand-out title in terms of pixel art. There's few indie games I can think of that have such gorgeous pixel art.
The writing of the characters may be a bit on the nose, but I think the absurdist angle taken here adds to the charm. The story does get a bit repetitive unfortunately, but that's just a minor blemish on an all around fun game.

if they keep the trend and quality their transition to chunky 3D san andreas style game will be amazing, since this is a better version of GTA 2 in any regard. They made Vice City and that Scarface game into a self aware version of it`s own thing. It`s great.

Fun and addictive gameplay, nice retro soundtrack as you build your empire. could not stop myself playing all day.