Retro Force is a Shoot-'em up game that is published by Psygnosis Ltd

SCE Studio Liverpool

SCE Studio Liverpool is a video game development house head-quartered at Wavertree Technology Park in Liverpool, England. It is part of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios. Founded in 1984 as Psygnosis, the company is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment and...

 and developed by Visual Sciences

Visual Science

Visual Science, formerly Visual Sciences, was a computer and video game development company based in Dundee, Scotland. It was established in 1993 by Russell Kay, who was programmer of the hugely successful Lemmings games...

 (using their "ViSOS" framework.), the same developers of the infamous Formula 1 98

Formula 1 98

Formula 1 98 is a video game first released in Europe on October 30, 1998 for the PlayStation, and was developed by Psygnosis which held the official Formula 1 game licence at the time....

. It is set to be based in the future where 4 brave pilots must travel back in time in order to bring back the lost pieces of the holy artifact, Retro Force was released on March 1999 which is only released in Europe, The soundtrack to the game was composed By Gary Mckill.

Gameplay

In Retro Force, you get to play as one of the four members of Retro Force, you can get to choose either Paris, Hawtin, Pi, or Sinclair whatever suits your skill, but they each have their own aerial attributes, with your chosen character, you then have to shoot down your enemies from the sky and from the ground, you'll get to earn points by shooting down the enemies.
And also, you get to collect Bonus crystals, the more bonus crystals you collect, the bigger the score, and of course keep an eye on the super crystals, they hide in hard to reach places and in secret hiding places.

Plot

The story is taken place on 29th of November 2999 where the invasion starts and the Millennium celebration began to a halt, a giant UFO came towards the temple called the Commune of Worship which is home to the Holy Artifact, as the sirens blare at Combat Air Defense Academy(CADA), Retro Force battle out the UFO to stop them from taking the Holy Artifact, but they were too late as the final piece of the Holy Artifact combined with the rest, powers were unleashed leaving Retro force and the UFO disappear back through time.

Reception

Retro Force received mixed to negative reviews. Official UK PlayStation Magazine gave the game an 5 out of 10, while Das Offizielle PlayStation Magazin gave it an 3,3 out of 1. The only review that was decent enough, was from the German Playstation Magazine called PlayStation Zone (later PlayZone), which the mag scored a 77% and also included a playable demo of the game on its cover disc of the fourth issue, in where the game was reviewed.

Many shmup players from the Shmups forums have universally panned the game, f.E. Thunder Force described the game as ""Retro Force" on the Playstation was my worst shmup I purchased... on paper it sounded good, but in reality it's pure garbage. instant coaster..." while Sven666 commented "It's kinda crappy. Poor Graphics and just a boring game."

In one particluar review from a German games magazine called MAN!AC, the review, which scored the game 2 stars, described the "brave pilots" on the cover above as "clowns".