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CRASH BANDICOOT: MIND OVER MUTANT Posted by Joe Anderson on Nov 1, 2008 16:09 (Nov 1, 2008 16:09) |
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Much has happened since Crash Bandicoot’s previous adventure on the Xbox 360, Vivendi, the games previous publisher is now part of Activison and the Xbox 360 has had quite a few hit platformers, ok so that last bit’s a lie, as we all know that the Xbox 360 isn’t really a fan of the platformer genre, having no more than a handful of these type of games in it’s catalogue, which is why the latest Crash adventure, Mind Over Mutant should be a welcome addition to the system.
Mind over Mutant is of course the sequel to last year’s Crash of the Titans, which introduced the ability to take over your enemy and use them to pound everything in your path, this year the ability returns (hence he games title) but with more of an emphasis on controlling the enemies. The story behind the game is that Doctor Neo Cortex and his old partner Doctor Nitrus Brio have created a machine which can control the minds of both mutants and bandicoots by transmitting bad Mojo, while Crash is not affected by this, his friends are and therefore it’s your job to find out what the bad guys are up to and stop them.
 The story is told thanks to a mixture of cutscene animation and good humor, there are certainly a few points in the game that will make you laugh, but that’s always been the case with Crash games, they have always had a knack of making you smile.
Anyone who played the previous game should feel right at home as soon as the adventure begins, the controls and movements of Crash are practically identical, a press of the various buttons will allow you to use Crash’s spin, jump and kick, though as mentioned perhaps the most impressive move is the one that allows you to “jack” mutants, this is done by knocking them out and when prompted pressing the B button, this will then give you access to any moves that they have such as the ice attack. During the game you will take over some pretty awesome mutants be they hovering or horned, the only bad point about this is that they are more fun to play than Crash is, which you would think kind of defeats the purpose of playing a Crash game in the first place.
As mentioned briefly above, you can now store mutants if you do not need to use them at a particular moment, the beauty of this is that you can store quite a few, meaning that you can choose the right mutant for the right job. You can also upgrade mutants allowing them to become stronger and more useful to you.
One of the main problems with the game is that if you will find yourself backtracking quite a bit, for example in one level you have to store a mutant in order to get over a river, on one occasion I never realized this and had travelled all the way to the river, only to discover that I then had to travel back to the point where the mutant was in order for me to “jack” him and then store him away until I needed him, the game will also have you travelling back after a while through previous levels and this really is were the problems begin. The main issue with traveling back through levels is that the camera certainly doesn’t help matters, this is because it is completely stuck in place, meaning that sometimes when you are having to walk back through paths you will go the whole way without seeing what is in front of you and without the option to change this or look at a map you can get pretty stuck.
 Graphically the game is pretty impressive, the different levels you explore are all highly detailed and quite varied, the effects during the game are also pretty impressive, boxes shard into a thousand pieces as you break through them and the water has a very realistic look to it, however it’s just a pity that the camera has to spoil all the good work here. Mind over Mutant does have it’s good moments but unfortunately the bad outweighs these, the camera is pretty awful thanks to it’s insistence on remaining static and the fact remains that controlling the mutants is more fun than controlling Crash himself. Perhaps like Sonic this little furry creatures best days are behind him.
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