Fasten your seatbelts as Crash Dummy heads onto DS and PSP
Will Crash Dummy Vs The Evil D-Troit make an impact?
Given the title, you might think Crash Dummy Vs The Evil D-Troit is a game where you'll be literally thrown into a dangerous world of rear impacted cars, exploding petrol tanks and shattered windscreens, all to a soundtrack of Motown from the Motor City.
Wrong. Instead, Italian gamemaker Twelve Interactive plans a new handheld twist on the age-old action platformer genre, as you leap into the hazardous world of the eponymous Crash Dummy.
As you might suspect, Mr D-Troit ain't a goodun. Indeed he's stolen your girlfriend, Tyre (insert pneumatic joke here), as well as shutting down your creator Professor Advisor's Crash Industry business. D-Troit's new crash dummies are even being used to perform bank robberies, swindles and other nefarious rackets.
This tissue-thin backstory is the set-up for, we hope, plenty of thrills and spills. Taking a 2D-ish perspective, albeit with some extra if limited 3D elements, we're promised levels full of moving platforms, large hooks, exploding barrels, big bosses, deadly electrical discharges, slowly panning security cameras and bucketloads of bad guys.
Thankfully the professor's armed you with a morph gun, which happily can be transformed into a flamethrower, freeze spray or rapidfire rubber bullets, to name just a few righteous weapons at your disposal.
Other helpful attributes include a superspeed run and the ability to holographically link up with the professor, who will provide advice when things get confusing. And for when it all hits the fan, an aptly-named Panic mode will electrify any nearby enemies and other mechanical devices.
It's early days, so we'll cross our fingers for Crash Dummy Vs The Evil D-Troit hitting the spot, especially the PSP version – the console to date hasn't been blessed with many platformers. (Hit the 'Watch It!' button to get your hands on the 50MB video for more details of the game running on Sony's portable.)
The strength of Nintendo's platform catalogue may make it a harder sell for DS, of course, but it's always good to see original titles on the cards. Let's hope the relatively inexperienced developer gets enough time and resources to hone its ambitious design.
Still being strapped into its rocket-powered sledge, Crash Dummy Vs The Evil D-Troit is due to be released in Spring 2007.
