Unlike Crash, Cro-Mag lets you shift into a first-person mode in a settings menu, though the game is decidedly more difficult to play when you can’t see your kart, as you can’t always figure out what to do when you hit a wall.Īpparently, the correct answer is to “back up.” Unlike Crash, Cro-Mag makes you hold a finger on the screen at all times for acceleration, releasing it to slow down, hitting a brake to stop, and an R button for reverse.

This is better in that you can drive up the side of a hill or off into a moat, but worse in that your viewpoint constantly is rotating.

Another visual issue is a bit harder to describe, but ever-present: for better and for worse, Pangea gives you more freedom of vertical and off-axis horizontal movement within a level. Items tend to be easy to spot, but made from unattractive flat textures. Similarly, though the textures are smooth and fairly detailed, they don’t contrast enough with the characters at times, so it’s easy for the eye to get lost with everything that’s going on. Though the polygonal models are very detailed, they’re on the ugly side, which doesn’t make the game as endearing as it could be there’s also a lot of music, but it’s not great. The negative differences between Crash and Cro-Mag are several in number. Another stage, Atlantis, puts you in command of an underwater submarine rather than a kart Pangea could easily release an entire iPhone game around this concept. There are at least nine levels, each with different art, and the levels are positively packed with things to find, smash into, and get sucked up by-the first stage alone is littered with weapon icons, and lets you get sucked up by a whirlwind when you’re not crashing into cacti or other racers. On positive notes, Pangea’s graphics engine is both more advanced and better used than Polarbit’s, with superior frame rates, much more detailed karts and tracks, and smoother colors. Like Crash and Mario Kart before it, you’re in charge of a character on a go kart who goes around a track three times collecting items, using weapons, and basically trying to keep ahead of other racers.

Originally sold for $10 but reduced to $6 after our review, Cro-Mag Rally has a lot in common with Crash in concept, but it’s more ambitious in scope, if not always as fun to play.

Cro mag rally racing game