Crazy Kangaroo
|
3DS
| Crazy Kangaroo

Another week, another game with "crazy" in the title on Nintendo's eShop. Like last week's title, Crazy Hunter, Crazy Kangaroo doesn't make a lick of sense, but happily it's a lot more fun to play.

That said, you'll have seen most of what this marsupial has to offer. Crazy Kangaroo is entirely adequate, but it never approaches game design excellence.

Gamelion's time-waster is a perfectly acceptable combination of platforming and endless-runner that will keep you entertained between better releases.

“How you doin'?” Okay, I guess?

Shockingly, you play as a kangaroo. A crazy one. You're on the run from tribal warriors, game hunters, and the authorities across three landscapes.

The only differences between these changes of scenery and opponent are in the difficulty and visual design. The gameplay remains constant across both the Stages and Endless modes.

In Stages mode you start at level 1-1 and keep hopping, from floating platform to floating platform, avoiding hazards. You collect stars for extra points, which in turn are converted to coins to spend on upgrades for the power-ups scattered across each level, as well as extra lives.

These power-ups include a rocket-powered boost across vast stretches of a stage, a life preserver to avoid drowning in the water, and score multipliers to boost your total at the end of a run.

With your pursuers always on your tail, it's necessary to maintain your forward momentum, and this high pace will often be your undoing as you leap toward the unseen.

Endless mode is essentially the same as Stages, though it only finishes when you lose your single life. If this all sounds like a top-down Doodle Jump with less shooting, that's because it is.

Less crazy, more krazy

The gameplay is tried and tested fare: never really wowing, never really frustrating. It's just a shame that the presentation can't match the six-out-of-ten gameplay.

Tepid and uninspiring, its tone is Chuckle Brothers wacky: all over-the-top smiles, high-pitched vocal clips, and physical comedy hijinks. It's the kind of humour that children might giggle at, but those over the age of 15 will find grating.

Unlocking bonuses, completing tougher stages, and hitting high scores will hold your interest for a while. But you'll tire of Crazy Kangaroo before you've done everything. If you've got some spare cash tied up in the eShop and you've played everything listed here, then this might be a pleasant enough diversion.

Crazy Kangaroo

It's difficult to get too enthused about Crazy Kangaroo, on account of it being so middle of the road. It's fun enough in small chunks, and while there's nothing atrociously bad here to get upset about, there's little new that's exciting either
Score
Peter Willington
Peter Willington
Die hard Suda 51 fan and professed Cherry Coke addict, freelancer Peter Willington was initially set for a career in showbiz, training for half a decade to walk the boards. Realising that there's no money in acting, he decided instead to make his fortune in writing about video games. Peter never learns from his mistakes.