But again, the game’s annoying speed (and the finicky performance of the fire button) makes actually hitting enemies an extremely rare occurrence.Ĭro-Mag Rally has a variety of Achievements, including a few creative ones like hitting all of the cacti in the Desert track. Most weapons can be fired forward or backward, depending on whether players hit the top or bottom of the fire button. They’re small and hard enough to pick up, just like arrowheads.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention weapons and powerups. Turning around to pick up the tiny arrowhead sprites is torturous due to the unnecessarily high speed as well. As a result, it often feels like you’re careening out of control, necessitating constant breaking to keep things in check. But the overall speed of the game is just too fast for a kart racer, especially with the frequently narrow and winding track design. Citizen 12 famously added an auto-accelerate feature to the game post-launch. Steering utilizes tilt controls and works fine. Gather races also bring Cro-Mag Rally’s physics and control problems to the forefront. Unfortunately the rotating sprites of the arrowheads are way too hard to see, especially as the backgrounds often use a lot of the same grays as they do. Here players must not only try to come in first but also collect 8 arrowheads that are scattered around the track. Race is kind of fun at times, but Gather is not.
CRO MAG RALLY DRIVERS
Race is a traditional race against three other drivers with the object of coming in first. While Cro-Mag Rally is obviously inspired by Mario Kart, the designers don’t seem to understand the game they’re copying well enough to do it justice.Įach of Cro-Mag Rally’s tracks can be played two ways: Race and Gather. Many tracks are filled with repeated tight turns that the karts can’t properly keep up with, too. Instead of enhancing the gameplay experience, all of these things only serve to annoy. There are also aggressive obstacles like tornados and statues that shoot lightning at drivers, knocking them about wildly. Every track is littered with way too many random obstacles, most of which stop the player’s kart in its tracks when hit. The actual course design is where this game’s tracks fall apart. Also, every stage has its own tune that fits it perfectly the music is the best part of the game. Living set pieces like dinosaurs, yetis, and mummies instill a bit of character. The included tracks show some creativity and promise, as they include fun locals like The Great Wall (Ancient China), a Viking Village, and a couple of Stone-age era tracks. They use tiny fonts that don’t fit with the rest of the game, and would definitely have benefitted from some cleanup.Ĭro-Mag Rally lacks a metagame, simply presenting gamers with a selection of tracks and an assortment of vehicles with varying stats to race with. The Settings menu and Credits screen look haphazardly thrown together.
CRO MAG RALLY WINDOWS
But one area where the port really drops the ball is the design of the Windows Phone-specific UI screens.
Now, those problems all came from the original game, though I question the wisdom of not cleaning up and enhancing the graphics during the porting process. Put Cro-Mag Rally up against a recent game like Jet Car Stunts or even the other WP7 launch racing titles and it comes up way short. The textures don’t pick up the slack due to their low resolution, and the colors are generally garish. Every single object in the game is overly angular and lacking in definition. Looking past the cave-monster drivers (which you pretty much have to do in order to protect your retinas), the game sports some low-end Playstation One-era 3D visuals. At the very least, the original art designer needs to look for a new field of work, such as the custodial arts. They make a decent case for regulating art and turning the world into a dystopian police state, if only to protect gamers from having to see such horrid things. The character designs of the two playable cavemen are so atrociously, heinously bad. The fault here lies mostly with the original developer, as the game has always been an affront to the eyes. Cro-Mag Rally is hands-down the most hideous 3D game in the mobile Xbox Live lineup. I can frequently enjoy games with simplistic graphics or awkward art styles, but even I have limits.
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