The game's penchant for
death animations just about crosses the line of good taste.
Not exact matches
But at the same time, zombies no longer bleed or come further apart or even move after
death; fewer objects are interactive with custom
animations and real time physics; and many objects are
just window dressing props when it makes no sense that Frank can't use them.
Sadly this lack of any intelligence shows up in the boss battles too; epic fights against Wolverine or Gambit should be a deadly dance of
death, but in reality both characters have
just a few simple moves at their disposal and have a rather peculiar tendency to attack absolutely nothing, leaving the locked in an attack
animation where you can happily batter them black and blue.
Monkey can chain together light and heavy attacks with his staff, fluid
animations linking together into whirling dance of
death, but the possible combinations amount to
just a few which you'll repeat over and over again for the duration of the game.
There's
just no escaping it, there might be brand new
death animations to keep you entertained - oh look I've been swallowed by a lion again - but there's no avoiding that the controls
just mean that Crash Bandicoot has become Dark Souls.
Melee attack
animations look really bad, and
death animations are especially bad — when they die, enemies
just turn blue and fade away as they fall to the ground like a character from a 1990s video game.
Small touches like different
death animations depending on where your character is hit (and even the forced removal of headgear if someone
just misses you) add a huge bundle of personality, which is without even mentioning the game's best visual feature: The colour of your controller's lightbar matches that of your character, meaning if a spectator walks in to the room there is no need for the annoying «Which one is you?»