CrossKrush (REVIEW)

Imagine if you will retiring at an old age in a house that's smack dab in the middle of a busy intersection. A long awaited vacation home situated supposedly far away from the hustle and bustle of a life left behind. Within this humble abode you finally have the time available to spend with your loving wife. After having spent most of your life dealing with your kids, and their drama you get to make good those vows you spoke so long ago. You choose to spend your retirement days alongside your dearly beloved listening to an old radio, and watching the news on an old tube style television. In your spare time you also dance the time away with your wife to an old record player that contains that one record with that one song which means the most to you, and her. A song that commemorates your first date, and the many anniversaries thereafter. 

Now imagine all those wonderful things stolen away by the noisy traffic that constantly collects not far from your newfound home. What do you do? Well, in the case of CrossKrush you get off of your soggy bottom, and take care of business. You've had enough of those young whipper snappers and their noisy vehicles, so you pack some explosives, and carry your cane out to the crossroads to deal some geriatric street justice. Blowing up cars, and beating them with your cane until they blow the f**k up! BOOM!!!

CrossKrush, what a hoot! Gameplay in CrossKrush, as it were, is a blend of arcade-like genres. It mixes up the matchmaking of certain puzzle games, and the blast happy mechanics of titles such as Konami's Bomberman. As a bomb toting granny or grandpa your job, or your chosen duty is to place explosives on cells or tiles in front of approaching cars. One at a time per lane. Ultimately exploding said vehicles as they land on the prepped road blocks. The catch is getting hit by cars injures you, and destroying the wrong vehicles will cost you points. Points you say!? Yes, this tale of revenge over noise pollution is a score based affair, and perfecting the destruction of the waves of cars will mean the difference between a hi-score, low-score, or even game over ...

The Highway to Hell ...

CrossKrush is all about those cars, and lanes. Traffic, and such. In the way of car types that you'll encounter you'll find that you've got standard black cars, white cars, red TNT strapped cars, and ambulances with flashing lights to deal with. Black cars will blow up in a single burst while blowing up a white car will allow for the follow-up destruction of surrounding vehicles across adjacent lanes. Of course TNT cars will also explode cars directly surrounding them. Utilizing this knowledge, and avoiding the destruction of any ambulances in the jam you can score points. Points are tallied according to combos, single blasts, and perfect clears. Perfectly cleared waves only happen when you destroy the cars in such a way that it's either a one and done clearing or it's a collective combos not leaving a single vehicle on the road. Minus the ambulances which must be allowed to pass to the finish line you are trying to prevent the other vehicles from passing.

You Have a Certain Set of Skills ...

At your disposal, as the Grandparent/s wronged, you have a supply of bombs that can be placed on square lots, or cells in front of the vehicles. That, and a weaker cane that can be used to also blow up vehicles through multiple strikes. Bombs go boom while your boomstick goes CLINK-CLANK-BOOM! Along with the cane melee weapon comes power-ups that will drop from certain vehicles, and require the cane button to activate. These things can assist in the clearing of cars via concentrated laser beams or even with health regeneration via health refills. Speaking of health your grandma or grandpa, at base level, have a certain amount of health that depletes when they run into a car or a car runs into them. Collisions with the vehicles leave them momentarily dazed, and unable to move for a brief recovery period. Keeping this in mind you must carefully move them, and position them out of harms way as you plant bombs, and deal blows with your cane. The end goal being to clear the 10 waves in each stage while trying not to let any vehicles beside the ones that can pass, pass. Clearing the columns of cars, or lanes of cars in the most efficient manner will raise your score while not taking advantage of combos, and blowing up passable vehicles will bank you less score, and even penalize you for your screw ups.

The Presentation ...

Visually the game is a semi-top down spectacle with basic three dimensional animations, and blocky creations. All doing their thing according to some oldschool music fitting of the game's theme. There are even day, and night cycles as well as a little story element thrown in through speechless 3D animation sequences/intro. The characters you can choose from, which are the stars of the show, come with some customization options themselves including skin color, and outfit color. Added effects such as controller vibration, a B&W screen filter, and screen shake option can be tweaked as well through menu toggles. 

The Verdict ...

For a $5 indie CrossKrush actually impresses me. Everything from the soundtrack to the graphics, and the mechanics come together in such a complimentary way. I personally loved the story about the elderly husband, and wife dealing with traffic noise in the worst sort of way. Gameplay-wise it was fun, but a bit limited in what it offered. The only problem therein is that it sets a hi-score ceiling, or limit that cannot be surpassed. Were the game to offer an endless mode, and a mode where the waves were randomized it could easily increase replay value, and hi-score potential. That having been said I still think the game earns it's asking price, and is a fun little indie to pass the time with. Something to have a laugh over, and laughs are a good thing here in 2020.