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Crystal Crazy is Wacky



Author: Mitch Patenaude
Date: March, 1994
Keywords: Casady & Greene Quest game review software program
Text: For all you Crystal Raider and Crystal Quest fans out there, the latest and weirdest and funniest in the line has just arrived: Crystal Crazy. The basic game hasn't changed significantly, but it has been joined by six-legged space cows and black holes, among other things. The game arrives on three 800k floppies, and installs fairly quickly. It then asks for the first install disk the first time you run the game, or when you move the game to a new volume (i.e. move it back and forth to a cartridge drive for archival purposes). Once installed it takes up 3.4 MB of hard disk space.. a little large, but the game is worth it. When started, it will bring up a configuration window, allowing the user to choose various options; whether to play in the default 9-inch window, or to use the whole monitor, or something in-between. This configuration screen also has a check box allowing you to bypass it in the future. It's nice to be able to adapt the game to any monitor size, but it affects the difficulty of the game greatly. Crystal Crazy is a game of near infinite whimsy. The instructions, which are built into the game, start out; ''Crystal Crazy is an example of what is usually given the illustrious title: 'mindless shoot-'em-up game'. This depends on whether your definition of mindless includes having fun just for the sake of it.'' The instructions go on to say, ''The aim is to get as high a score as possible, thus obtaining a better place on the high score table and getting a totally irrational, but deeply satisfying, warm cuddly feeling by doing so.'' The instructions continue on in this good-natured, self-mocking tone throughout. They are complete, clear, and fun to read. My only gripe is the lack of any printed manual. The only printed instructions are on a small slip of paper which tell you how to install the game. While the lack of a printed manual is a good move environmentally, it can be annoying when you are playing the game and want to refer to the manual to determine what kind of nasties are killing you. The basic game is fairly simple. You must move your ''ship'' around the screen, avoiding nasties (their term), while completing some task; then you get out of that level. The movement is not intuitive at first. The mouse is used to move your ship, but moving the mouse changes your velocity, rather than your position. This can be disorienting at first, but is not bad with some practice. However, this type of control didn't work well with my Gravis Mousestick II. Actually this was not a problem, since the mouse proved more than adequate. The tasks you must complete to move from one level to the next vary with each level. You may be required to collect all the crystals on the screen, smash fragile objects against the walls, draw or erase pictures, put together puzzles, sink pool balls in order, or some combination of the above. While you're doing these tasks, you must avoid benign nasties such as roaming mushrooms and ''leftovers of pointless genetic experiments on pieces of granite''; or as nasty as pulsating lumps of flesh which quickly shoot deadly eyeballs at you. If you're fast enough you get a point bonus for that level, although there's an annoying feature here; if you choose to cancel the whimsical, but monotonous animation that goes with the bonus, you give up the bonus as well! Other than that, I have greatly enjoyed playing this game, and recommend it highly. Crystal Crazy has a suggested retail price of $49.95, although it can be had from almost any major software retailer for as little as $31. The box says it requires 2MB of RAM (3MB under System 7), System 6.0.2 or later, and a hard drive. It runs well on my Mac IIci with 8MB of RAM, and should run well on almost any Mac. Crystal Crazy is published by: Casady & Greene 22734 Portola Drive Salinas, CA 93908-111 (800) 359-4920

Copyright © march, 1994 by Mitch Patenaude


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