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»Crush Roller
"It’s like the bastard love child of Pac-Man and Q*Bert."
Man, there were a lot of ports on the NGPC. I mean
seriously. A lot of them I could understand though - you had the
various ports/remakes of classic SNK fighters (too many to name), other
SNK games (Baseball Stars), games on the Neo Geo MVS (Bust-A-Move
Pocket), and other games that seemingly have no evident connection to
SNK whatsoever. This is probably one of the strangest ports I’ve
encountered, mainly because... I didn’t even know it was a port.
Yes,
you heard me correctly: this game’s actually a port. Even more amazing
is the fact that the original game in question was released in the
States. Released in America under the title Make Trax by acclaimed arcade developer Williams, Crush Roller
was released throughout Asia in 1981. Developed by a small South Korean
company known as Kural Samno, it’s not exactly one of the most popular
games ever, but it did see a home release on the Famicom, although that
was a bootleg known as “Paint Roller”. Still, it seems like a
bit of good fortune that this game got revived in 1999 by ADK, even if
the release wasn’t well-received.
Considering the game’s age, it’s obvious what one should expect from CR
- a game that harkens back to the golden age of arcade gaming. In other
words, the objective of the game is really, REALLY simple in theory,
but difficult in execution. players take on the role of... I don’t
know, some kind of paintbrush. Anyway, the point of each stage is to
paint every segment of the stage – a labyrinth-like road - in a new
color. As the tagline says, it’s like Pac-Man meets Q*Bert. For the
sake of difficulty, our painting protagonist is not alone: there are
also two kinds of enemies. First, we have two fish, which pursue the
player constantly and kill on contact, much like the Ghosts in Pac-Man.
The only way to defeat these fish is with the steam rollers, placed in
various locations in the stage. By moving onto these rollers, one can
ride them a short distance, allowing players to crush any fish that are
coming their way. Of course, the fish regenerate seconds later and
getting the timing down can be a pain. On the other hand, there are
also animals that appear. As opposed to causing instant death for the
plucky paintbrush, they simply mess up the paint work already
completed; leaving things like paw prints or bone...prints (?) to
impede the player’s progress. On the plus side, they can be killed
easily: just run into them and they’re history. Also, for each new
animal you defeat, it gets added to a collection... for some reason.
Anyway,
there are three game modes in all. First is the basic mode, where
players move progressively through the game stage-by-stage. Next,
there’s Trial mode, where players can replay any of the stages they’ve
already beaten. Finally, there’s Versus mode, which is exactly what it
sounds like. There’s also that aforementioned Collection, but that’s
not really a game mode, now is it?
On
the surface, this game has some old-school arcade appeal.
Unfortunately, it’s also rightfully overshadowed by many other
classics, like Dig-Dug, Bubbles and Pac-Man. Hell, there’s even a pretty good version of Pac-Man on the NGPC, which pretty much makes CR
obsolete for the most part - except for the Versus mode, of course.
Worse yet, this is one of those games where a collection system doesn’t
do any good for the game’s experience. In fact, it’s pretty stupid: you
pretty much have to take out the animal to finish the stage, so there’s
no real added difficulty. If they wanted to make a collection system,
they should have made it so that the only way to collect the animal
data would be for player to complete the stage WITHOUT killing the
animal. Now, that would have been a nice addition.
Let’s
get to the game’s best quality: the graphics. I’ve got to say, this is
one of the few games where the NGPC’s limited palette rarely comes into
play. In fact, the only point where it’s really noticeable is during
the intro cinematic. Seriously, everything looks vibrant and clear, and
compared to what I’ve seen, it’s a step-up from the original arcade
game.
The audio is probably
the game’s second-best quality. The soundtrack’s actually pretty good,
with some catchy tunes. What really caught me off-guard is the fact
that each stage has a completely different set of music. I mean, even
the little death jingle varies from stage to stage. Now that’s what I
call dedication! I just wish the same could be said for the sound
effects, but then again, should we expect much more? I mean, they are
JUST sound effects.
Finally,
we come to the game’s lowest point: replay. I’m sorry, but after you’ve
got a handle on what to expect from the game, there’s no real incentive
to keep playing. It’s basically just a Pac-Man ripoff, with weaker power-ups, less enemies and better music. As I mentioned earlier, there is a port of Pac-Man
on the NGPC, which means there’s even less incentive: I mean, why go
for a mediocre copycat, when the real deal’s available for the same
price? In the end, I can only recommend Crush Roller to those who have fond memories of Make Trax, people who want a slightly more cerebral take on Pac-Man or just those who are extremely curious and willing to part with however much a copy of CR goes for on eBay.
Article by: Wolfdogg
Posted on: Sep. 21st, 2007 |
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Review Recap |
| Gameplay |
| It’s unique, that’s for sure. But it’s not particularly enthralling. |
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Graphics |
| Wow, a NGPC game where the color limitations are barely noticeable! |
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Sound |
| The music’s actually pretty good. Too bad the sound effects are average. |
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Replay Value |
| With three game modes and not much else going for it, this one’s barely worth a second look. |
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