Crash: Mind Over Mutant (Wii) Review
Crash Bandicoot is spinning back into action on the Wii. Following on from his last adventure in Crash Of The Titans, the platforming mascot must again learn to control and defeat the mind controlled mutant army of Dr. Neo Cortex to save his friends and end Cortexs evil plan.
Crash: Mind Over Mutant re-introduces the Mutant controlling powers found in the last title, giving Crash the back seat for most of the game and instead allowing him to jack a wide variety of mutants and use their unique abilities to progress through the objectives in the story.
Crash Bandicoot has come a long way since his original debut in a simplistic yet successful linear action platformer for the original Playstation. Two console generations later and Crash is still around, yet Mind Over Mutant is a good example at how the traditional run and jump style of platforming has begun to phase out, especially in Crashs case, with his new adventure having much more focus on utilising a variety of mutant abilities to defeat enemies and overcome obstacles in an attempted free roaming universe.
The story opens out with Crash and friends enjoying a sunny day on the Wumpa Islands together with a basic mission for Crash to collect a few machine parts for his friends to get familiar with the game. Not long later Dr. Neo Cortex emerges and chaos begins, coupled with a cameo from an original Crash Bandicoot villain, Dr. Nitrus Brio, together they unleash a wave of mind controlling devices on the creatures of the land. With Crash seemingly immune to the powers of mind control, its up to him and his mask companion Aku Aku to take control of the mutant Titans and free his world from the demise of Cortex.
All of the common characters from the Crash series are in there with companions CoCo, Crunch and Aku Aku making early appearances and looking pretty good on the Wii, but most significant of Mind Over Mutants visual portrayal is each single movie segment that completely changes art style every time. From a 2D puppet show, to western comic art and parodies on South Park and DragonBall Z the humor and stylistic nature of the Crash universe shines through in continually vibrant art design. To top it off the huge amount of voice acted dialogue features an array of big name stars such as Billy West (Ren & Stimpy) and Mark Hamill (Star Wars).
Crash has few similarities to the Bandicoot of past, especially now with his fancy new arm tattoos. While he still spins jumps and collects fruit, the majority of the game is played with mutants and their range of abilities differing between each creature. Certain levels can only be passed through when controlling the necessary mutant, such as the Ice Kingdom requiring a Ratcicle who can freeze water to create a path of ice or jacking a Spike Titan to roll through fast tracks and get to new areas. With Crash able to store a mutant for later use and swap between the two, a good balance of alternating gameplay is established to save this platformer from being “yet another Crash game”.
Combat is a decent combo driven third person affair with a few controls largely enhanced by the variety of mutants available to chew through enemies at Crashs will. Successful strings of attacks will reward Crash with a combo multiplier that increases the amount of Mojo collected – the powerful energy that will level up Crash and his mutants. Taking one hit will break the combo so care is often enforced to keep up the combo and collect as much Mojo as possible. The level system could use a bit more player control as Mojo is applied to whomever picks it up be they Bandicoot or mutant, so if you want to level up one specific mutant youll have to pick up Mojo while riding it for Mojo cannot be applied to any character at will.
The controls for Crash are quite tight and necessarily so with a lot of touchy platforming areas. The missing camera controls are a real sticking point in a lot of levels but apart from that the Wii Remote is used well to navigate Crash and his captured mutants around the perils of the Wumba Islands. Blocking and Charge attacks are used with the Nun-Chuck C and Z buttons while special mutant abilities or Crashs charge can be activated by shaking the Remote or Nun-Chuck. Mind Over Mutant has nothing lacking in a control scheme for a Wii platformer, apart from any camera capabilities, the control scheme is tight and responsive for the majority of the game.
Mind Over Mutant attempts to portray a free roaming universe where Crash can travel from destinations as required to complete missions but the structure of the levels and their goals reduces progression to very linear path finding. A map is provided to lay out the locations in the islands as well as give a brief description on Crashs current mission objectives. Theres a vague marker on the map as to where Crash will need to go next, but the dull reality is there will only ever really be one new path to go down, so Crash sticks to a solid path with no exploration benefits or room for side tracking. Occasionally Crash will need to back track which is where the attempted open world layout is only ever really noticed by the fact that you must repeat courses and paths in the reverse direction. Back tracking through levels is most always a chore in any game, especially a platformer, so a complete lack of camera controls in Mind Over Mutant makes getting lost a real hassle with such low visibility of certain paths and exits.
The difficulty curve in Mind Over Mutant can be approached by most anyone with three difficulties available for the newer or more seasoned players, but playing on the medium Tricky difficulty serves a good steady increase in challenge as new abilities and areas are opened throughout the islands. Co-operative play is included but limited as a support to the main character with a few attack abilities, only useful for anyone with a friend willing to sit back and watch most of the game as you play.
Crash: Mind Over Mutant is quite a competent action driven platformer that does a lot to spice up the adventure as you play through. The art style is vibrant and well realised and, while the jokes are of no higher caliber than what youd expect of Sunday morning cartoon TV, it still fits in with the Crash universe. Despite a few clear flaws and missing camera controls, the game is most accessible to anyone with a good learning curve and sense of fun. A more systematic level by level approach could have saved a lot of the tedious and often confusing back tracking but developers Radical Entertainment have done a good job at spicing up an old formula.
