Crash of the Titans Xbox 360 Review

Diverse levels offering an assortment of different challenges over the course of the game’s lifespan – that is the one trait most of the world’s greatest platformers all have in common. Moreover, it is something many developers struggle to even approach getting right. Usually, regardless of how good one single idea is, it will get boring with repetition, so it is always best for developers to try and mix things up should they want to end up with a winner on their hands once their title is released. Regretfully, Crash of the Titans is one of these games which is based around the concept of one idea, and yes, as an unfortunate result does get grating with repetition.

However, before we get any further, it should be noted that the core idea for Crash of the Titans is a good one, and giving you the ability to hijack and control monsters throughout the game is quite an entertaining one, at least for a while. However, when each of the levels in the game basically plays like a retread of the one before the excitement starts to wear thin very quickly. In fact, everything about the game sadly seems steeped in repetition with the same jumping sections, combat sections, and boss section repeated and reused throughout until it leaves even the most stalwart of platforming fans feeling weary and disheartened by what they are seeing.

There are bigger problems to worry about though, such as Radical’s decision to stay with the now positively archaic limited lives system, basically forcing you to work your way though large sections of levels – parts which may have already annoyed the first time round – all over again should you die too many times. This is a very weird decision, particularly when you consider that most of the other parts of the game were made with kids in mind, and if one age group is not going to like replaying sections it would be them. If that is not annoying enough then the bane of all platformers also comes into the fray in Crash of the Titans, that been bad camera placement. When you first start it is not all that bad, and once both of Crash’s feet remain firmly on the ground there are no problems on show. But, and it is a very big but, as soon as you add any kind of jumping at all the camera seems to make the most ludicrous positioning decisions making some jumps pure guess work, and almost all of them needlessly annoying.

So, with paragraph after paragraph of disappointment is there something good to talk about? Well surprisingly there are a few plus points to speak of. Firstly, the collection of monsters on show is impressive, and there are an acceptable number of new ones introduced as you work your way through the game. Also, should you find what’s on show interesting there is always the option to replay some sections to find hidden items, seek out secondary goals, and earn some unlockable extras. The games combo system is also very simple and intuitive, and even though it does not take much skill manages to feel satisfying. Depending on which monster you have hijacked you will have a differing selection of attacks mapped to one of three face buttons, and hammering these buttons – usually without too much thought – will result in you dishing out a series of attacks. Alas, even with these somewhat impressive, and highly accessible controls, the game has yet another problem as some enemies are still very difficult to take down. To make things worse the game seems to enjoy tossing a collection of these tougher enemies at you at the same time, thus resulting in multiple infuriating deaths even if you approach them with some tactics in mind. It has to be said that this part of the game really needed some more play testing. In fact, the whole game could have done with a lot of refinement.

Poor Crash, he has not been having the greatest time of late, with almost all of his recent exploits since he departed from the original Playstation being nothing but disappointing. Even though Crash of the Titans is certainly a step up from those lows, at best it can still only be seen as nothing more than an average platformer, offering nothing we have not already both seen and played many times before. However, with so little of the genre out there to appease fans right now many of it flaws of Crash’s latest effort are masked due to the limitation of the competition. Of course, that is still no excuse.

Compared to Ratchet & Clank and Super Mario Galaxy it can be seen as nothing but disappointing.

6 out of 10