Crash Team Rumble – don’t get ready to rumble (Picture: Activision)
The latest Crash Bandicoot game is an online multiplayer game that wants to be League Of Legends mixed with a platformer.
When people talk about Xbox acquiring Activision what they really mean is Call Of Duty. Blizzard and King make plenty of different titles, but Activision gave up making other games years ago… almost. Thanks to a previous merger, when Activision and Blizzard joined together to become one company, Activision also owns all the franchises once published by Vivendi Games, including Spyro The Dragon and Crash Bandicoot. A fact that they completely ignored for years on end.
However, after a cameo in Skylanders they released the remake compilation Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, which was a far bigger hit than they anticipated. Although the remakes were very well made that may have just been nostalgia talking, as subsequently they’ve struggled to repeat that success. The Crash Team Racing remake and the brand new Crash Bandicoot 4 had nowhere near the same impact and it’s been unclear what they would try next.
Although their initial enthusiasm seems to have dampened, Activision is still trying to keep Crash’s name alive, perhaps aware that he will inevitably become target number one for Hollywood execs looking to continue the run started by Sonic The Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros. Although we somehow doubt that a Crash-themed MOBA is going to do much for his brand appeal.
Much like Crash himself, MOBAs are something that used to be hugely popular but which you rarely hear anything about nowadays. League Of Legends and Dota 2 are still two of the biggest games in the world, but other publishers quickly realised there was no point trying to compete with them and so the Fortnite style bandwagon of clones was mercifully brief. Which makes it extra surprising that Activision would choose that formula for its new Crash game.
Formula is perhaps an unkind word to use though, as this isn’t just a generic MOBA rebranded with Crash characters. It’s still a platformer, with Activision describing the game, not as a MOBA (the acronym was invented before everyone agreed on what it actually means but the most common interpretation is multiplayer online battle arena), but a ‘strategic platformer.’
That doesn’t make it the first MOBA platformer, since Awesomenauts got there first, but Crash Team Rumble is still fairly unique. It’s also very straightforward, since the only goal is to collect more wumpa fruit than the opposing team, made up of Crash’s immediate family, Doctor Cortex, and a line-up of the franchise’s less memorable faces and a few new ones on top.
The 3D stages closely adhere to MOBA design principles, with three lanes along which the action is funnelled, and a variety of power-ups that do things such as increasing your jump range or turning you into a beach ball. The game is still developed by Toys for Bob, who made Crash Bandicoot 4, so it’s not a cheap cash-in farmed out to some lesser developers, but the truth is it’s a very slight concept whose allure doesn’t last much beyond trying out each of the nine maps.
Crash Team Rumble – a rumble of disapproval (Picture: Activision)
There are three class types: booster (can move faster and gets double the number of relics needed to activate a power-up), scorer (can carry more wump fruit), and blocker (slow but powerful). We’re not sure why the different characters weren’t just made unique in themselves but given now few people are playing at the moment it’s difficult to judge how well balanced they are.
Since Crash is a scorer, everyone plays as him at first, and his ability to carry more fruit does seem to be an almost unmanageable advantage. We did force ourselves to play as a blocker for a while, though, and they are more effective than they first seem, able to stop the opposing team from scoring, but they’re absolutely no fun to play as and we quickly lost interest.
Boosters are definitely a waste of time, as power-ups don’t make enough of a difference for their abilities to be worthwhile and, again, it’s a boring way to win; which ultimately is the only important consideration.
Crash Team Rumble feels like a game that everyone gave up on halfway through development and yet couldn’t bring themselves to cancel. There’s a Battle Pass, so we’re sure at some point it was meant to be free-to-play, but it’s not and even at a reduced place the few hours of limited entertainment you get from it are in no way worth the money, effort, or time.
We’re not sure what’s next for Crash Bandicoot but it seems to us the only obvious option now is to invest in a modern 3D platformer, which is something Toys of Bob proved very adept at with the Skylanders series. Whether Activision (or Microsoft) will want to make that size of investment we’ll have to wait and see but Crash Team Rumble is the sort of release that’ll be forgotten about in a week and that certainly isn’t going to help with Crash’s already stalled comeback.
Crash Team Rumble review summary
In Short: Turning Crash Bandicoot into a MOBA is certainly a choice but not one that’s paid off, in this paper thin platformer that has little to offer either franchise fans or newcomers.
Pros: The graphics are quite good and the basic action functions well enough, in terms of being a no frills MOBA.
Cons: The gameplay is so thin it’s almost translucent. Poorly balanced classes and abilities that will struggle to keep your attention for even a couple of hours.
Score: 4/10
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Xbox Series X/S
Price: £24.99
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Toys for Bob
Release Date: 26th June 2023
Age Rating: 7
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The latest Crash Bandicoot game is an online multiplayer game that wants to be League Of Legends mixed with a platformer.