PS3 Fanboy hands-on: Crash Commando
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Sony's excellent lineup of PSN games continues with the, sadly overlooked, Crash Commando. This online-only side-scrolling shooter looks like a cross between Warhawk and Soldat and promises some pick-up-and-play shooty fun when it releases at the end of the year.
A five-man development team in Sweden has been working for over a year, so far, to develop Crash Commando. The game will release with eight maps, trophy support and downloadable content is already being planned. Deathmatch and team deathmatch are already included in the game and a capture the flag mode is aiming to be included for launch or post-launch DLC.
Every map is "double sided," meaning that there's a front and a back and walking through doors will allow you to switch at any time. On the map we played, we could see our enemies moving around in the background, on the "other side," which gave a nice sense of depth. Movement is very free, as every character is equipped with a jetpack, allowing more time to be spent on fast paced combat.
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Weapons include rocket launchers, machine guns, explosives and grenades and can be swapped over whenever you die. Which you will. Bloodily. To keep the game moving quickly, deaths come quickly and often. Though watching your enemies (or, indeed, yourself) explode in a cloud of blood never gets dull.
At the moment the game is online only, with a maximum 12 players in the same game, though the Sony rep we spoke to said that there's the possibility of 4-player "sofa" play being added as downloadable content. It sounds like the developers are planning on supporting this game for quite a while after release, something that's common when it comes to Sony's exclusive titles.
Controls are nice and simple, using as few buttons on the controller as possible. The game also supports bots, allowing for single-player gameplay in the absence of any online friends. Crash Commando looks like it'll be great fun when it releases at the end of the year and, depending on the price, could be another PSN must-buy to add to the list.
