Crash Dodger
| Title: | Crash Dodger |
| Creator: | Toadfrogs |
| Reviewed on: | 11 Jan 2010 |
| Genre: | Arcade |
Images
Review
Reviewed by on 11 Jan 2010The aim of the game is, as the title suggests to dodge crashes. You are in control of a blue turret like machine with the ability to teleport at the touch of a button. You control your turret (which can't shoot) using the conventional WASD keys, and can teleport using the left mouse button.
The gameplay is original and addictive, but still feels a bit forced. The player regularly gets stuck in the edge of the screen causing the player to get hit by enemies until he teleports to a new location. This causes frustration for the player as he is being punished for something he had no control over. This becomes somewhat of a trend as the game continues, as other enemies which appear out of thin air, with no warning and collide with the unsuspecting player, again punishing him for something he couldn't possibly have prevented.
The WASD movement becomes pretty much useless as you quickly learn that you have unlimited teleports, so you end up just clicking everywhere and completely removing your hand from the keyboard, rendering those controls useless.
Movement with these keys feels labored and sluggish as diagonal movement just doesn't seem to work, along with holding down two different movement keys. The player ends up moving to places he didn't want to move to, or into oncoming bots. Movement for a game of this genre should be smooth and simple to control.
The games graphics are pretty simple but do the job. The effects are nice, but seem to end a bit abruptly rather than blend into the background, but only becomes noticeable after a good few play-throughs. The background is a little too simple, consisting of squares moving diagonally which I think tried to make the game feel a little more fast-paced, but just made the game a little more confusing to look at.
Sound and background music is adequate but gets repetitive. This game concentrates more on action so the music isn't really noticeable, all you want to hear is the explosions of the bad guys! In terms of variety, there are only four enemies which get a little boring after a while and a little predictable.
The game does have online highscores which is always a plus, but the scoring system just doesn't seem fair. Your score basically relies on your multiplier, which you can increase by hitting random multiplier icons during gameplay. It would have been a little better to have to earn a higher multiplier by stringing a combo together or kiling a certain amount of enemies.
Saving your game is a real pain though and could have been made much easier. Your data is not automatically saved as in most games, instead you must remember to press F5 after your game. I think it was at least twice where I lost all my medals because the game froze and didn't get a chance to press F5. The medals do increase the replay value though. I found something addictive about trying to string 30 kills together, and still haven't managed to get 10 crashes in one game.
Overall a nice fun game, but after a few plays you realize how easy it is and repetition gets the better of the player. That along with some dodgy gameplay and regular freezing makes it a little annoying and frustrating. With a little more work it could be one to watch. For some reason it has made the featured list on Yoyogames. Not one of my favorite games, but each to their own as they say!
Score Breakdown
| Graphics : | 6.0 | |
| Gameplay : | 4.0 | |
| Sound : | 4.0 | |
| Replay Value : | 6.0 | |
| Total (Not Average) : | 5.0 |