Eurogamer Expo: Crash Commando

It seems a little blasphemous to be sitting here typing up a hands-on for Crash Commando with that bulking header staring at me, since before the day I sat down to play it, I had not heard of the game. I don't know whether that was coincidence or there just wasn't much news on it beforehand, but besides perhaps a brief mumbling mention of the name in passing by some speech impedimented traveller, I was none the wiser.

Which is why I left the booth feeling pleasantly surprised. I'm one always up for a quick, frantic shoot-em-up of any kind, one that doesn't take months to master and Crash Commando fit that niche perfectly (as you can see in the video embedded below, my utter astonishment when I accidentally complete a mission within seconds; deceptively simple at first).

In the demo I braved, I took control of an anonymous guy, donned in anonymous gear, equipped with an anonymous gun. I was then prompted to kill other anonymous guys (okay, perhaps not anonymous, but names like 'Steve' and 'Brian' didn't exactly tell me much about their characters, and they didn't seem to be the most interesting guys anyway), and by prompting, I mean I was shot at and had to therefore try not to die. Gameplay is established on a 2D plane, where you run left and right, with the capabilities to fire in a 360 degree area, leaving no man safe. Guns are plentiful (if a little overpowerful) and it's nice to see that vehicles like tanks and jeeps have been added to, though in some cases are stuck on rails.

The only real twist is that there are essentially 2 battlefields on a single map, back-to-back, like two sides of a piece of paper, where switching between the two is a simple as walking through a door. Not much of a twist, but it's enough, as this ends in classic moments with people trying to escape their predator momentarily, only later to be cornered at the other end of the map by the same guy, but in a tank. Good times.


As I said, this game pleasantly surprised me. It's a buy for me at least, and when it comes out (there's no official release date) on the PSN, I guess we'll find out how much the online community (oh yes, online multiplayer) fares against my unstoppable beginners luck!

AW