Childhood classic. I like it better now than I did as a 9 year old kid when it first released. Definitely download the Better Rayman 3 mod for higher resolutions and QOL improvements. Note, you may need to lower your refresh rate to 60 hz (or less), because higher refresh rates affect gameplay.
To keep it short, Croc always had weird controls and something about the hitboxes, movement, and overall platforming felt weird. The remaster remedies the controls (and obviously, the visuals), but not much else. The hitboxes are odd and there is no feedback when you take damage or deal damage. You won't know you've dealt the killing blow to a boss until the 'Level Complete' message abruptly pops up. With this said, it is very true to the original. The controls and visuals are modernized - that's it. It still mostly plays like the original - warts and all. Whether that is good or bad is up to the player. I dig it for the most part. glad to see Croc return.
Very rarely do I feel that a game has no redeeming qualities but this is one of those few cases. 'NAM is hard to the point of not even being fun; meaning, it is needlessly difficult. You die comically fast, which, I guess, was a design choice by the developer to show that you're just a regular guy, rather than some larger-than-life character like Duke Nukem. Still, this is an arcade-style shooter, not a mil-sim, so it's like the difficulty level doesn't match the game's style. If you get shot twice, maybe three times, you're done. Bombs are constantly being dropped by the US and you'll constantly be blown to bits by them. Land mines are...numerous, and, because of the horrid (for 1998) graphics, you cannot see them. You'll continually walk over them and get blown to kingdom come. You can quick save, but you'll have to do it so often, that it distracts from the fun. With this said, you'll be reloading quicksaves far more than you'll be making them. It's just tedium to the core. Long story short, this game sucks.
It's okay. It feels like it is an unfinished game - like maybe the devs got nearly half-way through development and, for whatever reason, released the best of what they had done and called it a day. If you play with a controller, it *sort of* has controller support. It will recognize a controller, but it is extremely awkward using one, primarly because there is a dead-spot in diagonal movements with the joystick. If you use a third-party mapping program, you can alleviate the dead-spot but it kind of goes the other way - Kao's movements when pushing the joystick diagonally will become too quick and jerky. You can probably dig around a third-party button mapping program and find a way to correct this, but it just isn't worth it. The game is extremely short, which is probably a good thing, because it would overstay its welcome, otherwise. If you grab this as part of the trilogy, then it's worth playing. I would not purchase it on its own, though.
It's a great game, but it definitely suffers from that mid-2000's video game jank. There are unnecessary difficulty spikes at times, generally when tasked with destroying fighter planes. I played on medium difficulty and these sections would absolutely wipe the floor with me. The game has a very specific way it wants you to destroy the targets and if you deviate from that even slightly, you will die or fail. That's fine, but it can be very difficult to determine "how" the game wants you to play. With this said, it's a twenty year old game at the time of my review, so this kind of thing is to be expected. Aside from this, I love the game. One of the better WWII single-player shooters out there, for sure. Easily worth $10.00.
If I could give this 3 and 1/2 stars, I would, because I gave the original 3 stars and this improves upon it immensely. No annoying one liners. Combat gets repetitive, but I got this for barely over a dollar, and at that price, you can't beat it if you don't mind a janky older FPS.
I purchased this for .75 cents. At that price, it isn't bad at all. It's basically like Painkiller, but not as functional. It has a number of bugs and little irritating things, but nothing terrible (which is a relative thing from player to player, I suppose.) I wished they didn't have your character dropping stupid one-liners continually in his poorly voiced Texan accent. Honestly, that's probably my biggest complaint. I can get past the jank, but your character constantly talked got on my nerves after about 10 minutes. Again, it was .75 cents, so I'm happy. If you want a goofy shooter, held together with bubblegum and paperclips, it isn't bad at all for the price.
