At some point in time, wielding a plastic guitar as a means for living out one’s rock-star fantasy stopped being good enough. Now, communities across the world clamor for some form of innovation that will allow them to keep their accessories without feeling as if they are nothing more than household clutter; Retro/Grade is that innovation, and it will be unleashing its unique brand of rhythmic action on August 21 exclusively for the PlayStation 3.

In Retro/Grade, players help a wayward ship traverse through space and time in a direction that video games tend to avoid: backwards. Stages will have the user flying up and down undoing the damage done by their vessel by rhythmically tapping on color-coordinated missiles while also having them carefully avoid enemy fire; in short, it borrows liberally from Guitar Hero and then shoots the popular franchise into space. In a move that is similarly par for the course with Guitar Hero, the game doesn’t have to be played with a guitar peripheral and can instead be controlled with a standard DualShock 3 interface.

Retro/Grade will launch for the PlayStation Network on August 21. The game can be purchased individually or with its soundtrack as a reduced-price bundle. A demo will be released in the near future but has not been given a firm release date by the developers, 24 Caret.

[Eurogamer]