- Croc's got the moves! Help Croc, the crusading crocodile, rescue his peace-loving Gobbo friends from the grasp of the evil magician Baron Dante. Guide him through a beautifully-rendered 3D world, on a free-roaming adventure against the evil Baron and his devilish assistants - the Dantinis!.
Product description
-------------------
Croc's got the moves! Help Croc, the crusading crocodile, rescue
his peace-loving Gobbo friends from the grasp of the evil
magician Baron Dante. Guide him through a beautifully-rendered 3D
world, on a free-roaming adventure against the evil Baron and his
devilish assistants - the Dantinis!
This item is complete and includes game, game case and manual.
There is minimal wear to the labels or manual. Bonus downloadable
content may have already been redeemed. Game carts and disc are
professionally cleaned or resurfaced. This item, while
pre-played, is an excellent addition to your game collection. It
will also be a good playable piece.
Review
------
Fox Interactive's Croc: Legend of Gobbos sees its player as a
genuinely cute platform hero - something I never thought I'd ever
say about a video game character - who must explore a 3D Super
Mario 64-like world, in search of his kipped gerbil-esque
friends, the Gobbos.
Yep, that's right, the evil Baron Dante and his Dantini followers
have stolen away Croc's pals and spread them out equally all over
the world, so as to always have one around to harass if the need
arises. Now it's up to you to run, jump, climb, and swim your way
through 45 levels made up of forest, desert, ice, and Dante
Castle stages, freeing the Gobbos from their PETA-unfriendly
cages all the while. If you're really good and can make it to the
secret island, there's a secret boss on a hidden island to beat,
as well - making it, all in all, a handsomely sized game. It's
just some of the gameplay that takes place over those levels that
makes the whole thing a little questionable.
Croc can easily be seen as the sum of many previous video game
parts. The character possesses the butt-stomp of Mario from Super
Mario 64, the tail-spin and climbing ability of the same-named
lead of Crystal Dynamic's Gex, and bits of Sega's Sonic the
Hedgehog, as well. A few other games can be noticed at times,
too. But that's all right if the game's fun, right? Sure, and it
almost is.
Without a doubt, it's an impressive achievement that Argonaut was
able to nearly emulate a Super Mario 64-style 3D environment on
the Sony PlayStation, though it's less impressive that it wasn't
able to imitate the game's perspective and control. The creators
of SM64 knew that to be able to functionally jump from platform
to platform, the default view would have to be directly above and
behind the main character, and it is, or can be configured to be,
about 95 percent of the time. In Croc however, the player is
locked into a behind-and-to-the-side view during about half of
the game's crucial moments, making jumps or even general movement
far harder than they should be. In the beginning, this is far
less of an issue and Croc shows off how much of an enjoyable
title it could have been. But soon, moving platforms, dissolving
platforms, and other such devices are added to the mix and the
fun factor of the game falls off a cliff. Yes, this
perspective/control problem makes it that horribly frustrating to
play - even the use of Sony's Dual Analog Controller can't save
it.
In the end, Croc: Legend of Gobbos is a charmingly-enough-themed
platformer that just didn't live up to its potential. It ended up
a Christmas holiday must-rent, when it could have been a
Christmas holiday must-have. -- Joe Fielder
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot
logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc. -- GameSpot Review