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Croc 2 Demo (Reviews)

There seems to be a penchant recently for releasing games on the PC that look like they have come straight from console. Tonic Trouble was a good example, and Final Fantasy 8 on the PC is certainly receiving it's fair share of flack for the exactness of it's port - console-based menues and all. One thing these games all have in common is a control system designed around the limited control system of consoles, and Croc 2 is no exception.

The hardest part to get to grips with in this demo was controlling your little crocodile around the map. The default control system is based on similar third-person controls most notably used in Mario64 and Prince of Persia 3D, where left and right, rather than just turning you in the requried direction, actually make the character run in a circle according to the chosen direction of travel. For example, holding down left will make Croc run in a left-hand circle. Combining this with forward movement can prove to be at first confusing, then frustrating to people more used to third-person controls such as those found in Tomb Raider, or the (in my opinion) yet to be bettered 3rd person control system from Heretic II. It was only after much cursing that I discovered that during the game - not during control setup mind - you can choose between two control types - the one described above, and the more traditional type of control system seen in Tomb Raider and the recent Indiana Jones game.

Like these games, actually controlling your character once it gets moving can prove to be a little tricky at first. The camera type used is a follow camera, so it is not always directly behind you. I found myself stopping every so often to let the camera catch up and show me where I was going, and at other times, normally because of being too close to a wall, but on a couple of occasions for no apaprent reason, the camera refused to move. In one notable place the camera was actually helpfully located behind a vertical column, which blocked my view and made the next platform jump very tricky.

Control problems aside, Croc 2 was a lot of fun. It follows the visual style of games like Dungeon Keeper 2 and Tonic Trouble - slightly warped visuals, no verticals/horizontals - rather than the more architecturally correct Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia 3D style. The locations are colourful, and the enemies are large and easily spotted. Puzzles are generally easy to solve, although I have to admit that the boxes with question marks on themhad me stumped for a while - until I found out that by pressing the 'jump' key whilst in the the air, Croc would land on his behind breaking these boxes open. Unfortunately, a lot of the difficulty in the game comes from timing jumps. A saving grace is that in some cases you can catch the edge of something and dangle by your claw-tips, yet the number of times jumps were missed for no apaprent reason really detracted from the experience.

The developers have gone to great lengths to try and provide a game that as many people as possible can play. Console gamers will be familiar with the controls as they stand, and will be comfortable with the graphics, while for PC players it is an easy ntroduction to this style of gameplay. The demo ran quite happily on my Pentium 200 using a Voodoo1, so even those of you not yet able to afford an upgrade to Voodoo2 or Voodoo3 will be able to enjoy this game.

I'll give it 6 out of 10 for effort. And I must say I enjoyed the funky guitar music on the mines level...

- posted by cro on 11.04.01
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