Bit of a crash itself…
OK, could this be any tougher – how do you review a game it is nearly impossible to play? I have been trying for over a week to get a good match on Crasher, and constantly found the online tables empty, making reviewing this game a tough cookie. So, without further ado – here comes a review of a game that I´m not personally happy that I´ve played enough to be fair to.
Crasher is a vehicular combat arena game, much in the same vein as Twisted Metal and its counterparts. You pick yourself your buggy of choice (checking what special abilities you have along the way) and get dropped into one of several multi storey arenas to fight it out with opposing players in either 3v3 or 5v5 matches. Teams work best when players spread their abilities – it employs a sub-MMO mentality whereby the best teams have a good mix of healers, damage dealers, tanks, etc.
Level design is pretty good for whats on offer – three smaller multi-level maps and one bigger arena are what we have, and they all work pretty well when full. As matches progress, some of the maps get smaller as numbers dwindle, preventing the possibility of two players driving round in circles while their team mates get bored watching them. Landscapes are littered with powerups and healthpacks, adding further depth to the game, and some levels also have environmental hazards, such as crumbling ice, or lava erutptions to contend with as well. It´s just a shame there is so few actual levels.
Controls are pretty easy – you drive your buggy with the keyboard, move the camera with the mouse and select abilities with the number keys. Weapons are fired automatically by the car locking on to opponents – something I hated from the outset. I really struggled to get to grips with not having control over my weapons directly, and often found myself instinctively moving the camera but not aiming at what I wanted to. Abilities are pretty good though, adding a number of tactical elements to combat. The best players quickly learned to employ their moves collectively, and the game certainly rewards teamwork – lone gunmen tend to get made into mincemeat pretty quickly.
Presentation is a bit mixed – the cel-shaded graphics look nice, and the sounds are pretty good, but the menu system and tutorials lack a certain amount of polish. Logging into the game presents you with a very nineties-style menu system, and the tutorial is basically little more than a keyboard map. Learning the ropes is mainly down to trial and error, and with no offline play mode, this can be pretty tricky because…..
No one plays this game. Seriously. In about three or four hours of waiting at one point, I got into three games, one of which was basically three people (including me), and one which crashed out about thirty seconds in. I have since played a few more rounds, and the crash error is pretty common – I´d say about one in four matches has crashed for me, which isn´t a common thing. However, for an online only title, the lack of players is pretty disturbing, as these titles live and die very quickly by the community they foster. Couldn´t the developers have at least been on themselves to bolster player numbers for the first few weeks (or do they know something we don´t….?), or given away some copies to boost servers?
And therein is the overall problem – if no one plays this game, no one can play this game. There is no offline bot mode, and most people won’t sit staring at an empty server list for hours in the hope of getting a game. This title works on a levelling system based on wins and losses, and currently I have two of each (one gained in a one-on-one with another bored journo). My total game time is around six hours now, and I have really lost all interest in continuing. Shame, too, as the nuances of this title did intrigue me at the outset.
If developers Punchers Impact don´t address this issue very quickly, this is going to be a title that fades into obscurity faster than an X-factor runner-up – at 11.99, it´s just too much money for a title that you can hardly ever play. Fill the servers, get some more maps out, and give people an incentive to play, and I´m sure it should bloom. If only it can last long enough for this….
The Bad: NO ONE IS EVER ONLINE!; too few maps; no offline play; impossible to review properly because NO ONE IS EVER ONLINE!
