There’s a good variety to the levels here, both in terms of the visual style and layouts. Each has two planes, a foreground and background, with the player able to transition between them at one of several tunnel points scattered around the place. These two playing fields are separated by quite some distance and each has a degree of limited visibility into the other. This isn‘t just useful for helping to identify enemy locations, thereby keeping the game flowing that much more smoothly, but can also be utilised by several machine gun emplacements that are able to shoot into the background. Such hardpoints have a pretty restricted field of fire but in the objective-based modes they really come into their own, often allowing one last ditch attempt at stopping the enemy thief from returning your stolen intel. In addition, the locations of important objectives are also marked on the HUD from the player’s own plane of reference, with everything focused around keeping the flow of play moving.
This two-plane feature really is one of the biggest unique elements that Crash Commando brings to the table and it helps to add a far greater level of depth to a genre that can, at times, end up far too chaotic when players are able to spam map bottlenecks with gunfire. Thanks to the high level of connectivity that this design offers it pretty much eradicates the possibility of any such map exploits or cheap camping opportunities. As a result, most encounters between opposing teams will usually play out with only around 2-4 players involved, so you really do need some skill in dodging incoming ordinance and lining up shots on the fly in order to succeed. It’s simply not possible to just bomb it into a conflict, firing wildly and expect to be successful.
Such finely tuned combat mechanics are due in no small part to a very balanced set of weapons. You’ll find on offer a shotgun, grenade launcher, machine gun, rocket launcher, sniper rifle and CAB laser in addition to a range of supplementary gear such as grenades and mines. 2D games have sometimes had difficulty in sufficiently differentiating these types of weaponry enough so that while they each retain their individuality they all remain viable. In a game where players are predominantly airborne you might think, for example, that the rocket launcher is a fairly redundant choice – its splash damage rarely comes into effect and something like the sniper rifle will provide the same amount of stopping power but with a projectile that’s far harder to dodge. Crash Commando handles a dilemma like this one nicely by giving the launcher a higher ammo count and saddling the sniper rifle with a very slow reload time (which really comes into play when facing multiple opponents), thereby ensuring that all the weapons have their place. To succeed in this way without making the player feel overly handicapped in situations for which their weaponry wasn’t designed is a testament to the skill of the development team.
The only real bugbear present is the pairing of the mine and CAB laser. Mines are one of the secondary weapons a player can select, starting with 2 each time they respawn (further resupplies are available through in-game pickups). One of the objective modes tasks a team with destroying several control points while the other defends them and it’s here where the problem lies. The mines, once placed, can only be destroyed by a player’s death or a concentrated hit from the CAB gun. At the lower player counts it is possible for the defending team to spam these areas with so many mines that, thanks to the CAB gun’s weaker effectiveness at targeting players, it’s practically impossible to get through to the objective. It would have been better to have made the mines destroyable by other secondary weapon kits such as grenades and C4 bundles without adversely affecting the CAB’s balance thanks to its additional ability of healing teammates. This is, however, a minor niggle in an otherwise superbly put together game.
The developers have thrown a few vehicles into the mix, with a minigun-armed jeep and heavy duty, armoured tank on offer. They can be pretty devastating in combat and it is satisfying when you are able to fully bring their weaponry to bear in some of the larger battles. Crucially, though, they’re kept in line by jet boosters that refuel far slower than a player’s pack (which can also refill mid-flight when not burning – keeping you in the air for long periods of time when used right) and while ramps are provided to allow access to more of the map, the levels have been designed to restrict each vehicle’s movement to specific areas. This is very important and successfully prevents teams from becoming too over-reliant on their use.
To add a little reward and impetus to proceedings, those players who remain alive for long enough will unlock power-ups which remain active until their death. These enable regenerating health, improved speed and a neat little ability which turns the player’s jetpack roll into a fiery ball of pain for anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in its path. Of course these won’t do much good if you catch a rocket in the face but they’re a nice little system that makes the player feel satisfied with themselves as they rack up the kills, and while they do provide a slight edge in one-on-one fights they aren’t so overbearing as to unfairly bias the game towards the players who take early leads.
Crash Commando has a great atmosphere, with games set to the backdrop of some bright, energetic, mid- to late-nineties-style dance and electronica. Levels have bright, clear skies and there’s a nice variety to the locales – you’ve got some South American ruins, a destroyed city-scape and a secret base hidden away in the woods to name just a few. Each is full of detail, well lit and rich with colour – even the most industrial have some areas of natural flora and structural work. This is an old-school arcade game in every sense, it’s a pleasure to see a title with such rich, detailed visuals that also manages to capture that simple freshness of style and ambience that so characterised the heyday of the coin-op era.
Bots are thankfully featured but strangely only for the deathmatch and team deathmatch modes. The lack of AI support for the objective modes is the game’s one failing and, while it would have required additional development on top of the current bot AI, it really shouldn’t have been that difficult to implement. This does mean unfortunately that these matches can be a bit sparse thanks to the reduced player count. That said what AI is present does the job perfectly well (as you would expect really for a game where so much of the skill relies on reaction times and 2D projection calculations), thereby ensuring that the single player mode is still enjoyable.
Crash Commando is a superb, little release that binds classic, fast-paced 2D gameplay in a great looking package. The level designs are well thought out and visually diverse while the weapon mechanics and game balance are spot on. Barring the limited bot support it’s hard to find fault with what’s on offer here and anyone looking for a bit of retro-styled, hectic action will be well served.