“Crash Team Rumble” Review

 

One of the things that always kills my enthusiasm for multiplayer games is how some people take them so seriously. Maybe I’m weird, but I don’t like being yelled at because I didn’t do something exactly right or don’t have the skills of a professional gamer. It’s one of the reasons why I enjoyed Crash Team Rumble (PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One), which is such a weird, goofy, cartoony game that you’d have to be a huge dick to take it seriously.

In this third-person action game,

which has a somewhat aerial viewpoint (though not one as high up as Diablo IV), two teams of four compete to see who can grab the most Wumpa Fruit before time runs out. To do this, you simply run through them or smash boxes of them — y’know, like you do in every Crash Bandicoot game — and then run to your base and stand there until all your fruit is unloaded.

What gives teams in Crash Team Rumble an advantage are the gigantic gems you capture by briefly standing on them until they turn to your team’s color; controlling them multiplies how much fruit you collect. Smashed boxes, for instance, give you 5 Wumpa Fruit instead of the usual 3. Which may not seem like a huge bonus, but it can actually add up.

You can also carry up to 130 Wumpa Fruit at a time, though the longer you wait to make a deposit, the more you’ll lose when attacked.

Yeah, that’s the other thing.

While the two teams are both grabbing fruit, they can also attack the other team and cause them to lose their fruit. Crash’s spin move, for instance, doesn’t just open boxes, it opens a can of whoop-ass on ya, and can even, if he lands enough shots, briefly send you to Bandicoot heaven. Though, unlike some games, you don’t drop your fruit on the ground where your competition can then pick it up; they go with you to the great bandicoot reserve in the sky.

Oh, and here’s a helpful tip. While on your collection spot, you can spin to your heart’s content, since doing so won’t hurt your teammates, but it will the competition. Even better, your Wumpa Fruit will still get deposited, even if you’re doing the whole Wonder Woman thing, provided you unload it all before someone spins you to death.

Aiding you in both offense and defense, every character in Crash Team Rumble has a choice of rechargeable special skills. The Healing Fridge, for instance heals any teammate in range, while the Flytrap Spitter is an auto-turret that can mow down your enemies. Well, “mow down” is a bit strong. Crash Team Rumble is a cartoony game — it’s rated E10+, after all — so the turret is a plant, making it more like something out of Plants Vs. Zombies than Call Of Duty. So, no mowing.

In fact, there’s a lot in Crash Team Rumble that’s reminiscent of Plants Vs. Zombies. Specifically, Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2, which was a cartoony multiplayer shooter.

Though it’s even more like…

Super Smash Bros. All of the maps have edges you can fall off of to your death, and spinning attacks knock you back as well as hurt you, so you spend a lot of time yelling, “no no no no NOOOO!!” like Cleveland from Family Guy as someone spins you closer and closer to a cliff.

This happens a lot, in fact, as the nine different arenas are multilayered (and intricate, and cleverly designed…). There’s even fun ways to get to the upper levels in some of them, though all are clearly built with accessibility in mind. Well, accessibility for anamorphic marsupials who can jump and then jump again while in mid-jump that is.

The arenas in Crash Team Rumble also have special power-ups you can activate if, while grabbing fruit, you also remember to grab relics, which look like ornate ankhs. The Just Beachy map, for instance, lets you get into a giant human hamster ball that moves faster than you do. These hazards are also map-specific, and can be used anywhere in the arena, which means you can deploy the team-specific hazardous mushrooms in Tar Valley on the opposing side’s collection plate or the boosting gems.

Of course, in a game like this, variety is key to keeping players from, well, not wanting to be players anymore. And Crash Team Rumble has that, to a certain extent. While a lot of the options you unlock are about customizing the different characters, but only aesthetically — sorry, Coco’s snazzy new backpack doesn’t help her carry more Wumpa Fruit — you do have a choice when it comes to said characters.

For one thing, some use different attacks. While Crash, Coco, and Tawna have all taken the same spin class, Dr. Neo Cortex brandishes a laser gun, which allows him to shoot boxes from further away than Crash and friends can spin them apart.

Crash Team Rumble also…

has three character classes: Scorers, who score; Blockers, who block; and Boosters, who focus on controlling the booster gems. Though calling them “classes” is overselling it, given how Blockers can score and Boosters can block, and so on, and there’s no advantage to staying in your lane.

Oh, and how’s this for irony (or maybe me contradicting myself): Crash Team Rumble has an excellent announcer, and his excellence comes from how serious he takes this competition.

Of course, none of this would be worth a damn if the controls weren’t as spot on as they are in, well, every other Crash Bandicoot game. You gotta hand it to the good people at Toys For Bob who made this game, they know how to make the old furball move.

What this all becomes, when you’re in the thick of it, is a chaotic, silly, but undeniably fun game of mindless running and jumping, but always with a frantic drive to grab ALL. THE. FRUIT.

Plus,

for someone like me, who doesn’t play well with others, you have the added bonus of not actually having to work together. There’s no coordination involved, save for a cursory concern that not everyone on your team will be a Booster. Or Crash. Once a match starts, it’s every furball for themselves, and the game is much better for this chaos.

That said, while the different parts of Crash Team Rumble work well together, some elements are stronger than others. For starters, none of the jumping is as intricate as it is in Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy or Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time. Granted, it would’ve been weird if every arena was a complicated obstacle course, but adding some hard to reach places, with matching rewards, could’ve been interesting.

Then there’s the Gasmoxian Guards, the aliens from Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled and Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time. Dropping one on to the field is one of the special attacks you unlock later in the game, but they are so overpowered that, when deployed on the collection area, they’re more effective protection than a brick wall.

Also,

after about an hour, hour and a half, I was ready to take a break. But after a few hours of doing other things, I was ready for another go. Which may be the best thing I can say about Crash Team Rumble. While it never takes itself too seriously, and basically demands the same of everyone who plays it, it still manages to be a seriously good time.

SCORE: 8.0/10