Crash Time 5

Racing games are popular for good reason. The allure of a powerful car taking you at ridiculous speeds, the competition of trying to get ahead, and the skill needed to take tight turns are all exciting features of a great game. Crash Time 5 is unfortunately, not a great example of the racing game industry, and falls well short in almost every possible area.

Poor voice acting

The storyline for Crash Time 5 is told through cut scenes narrated by European voice actors who don’t have a strong grasp of the English language. The voice acting is riddled with translation errors, dutifully recited anyway. The script is hilarious due to the atrocious English but doesn’t help pull you into the game in any way.

Terrible driving

The voice acting isn’t the only part of the game that’s terrible. The cars stop way too fast than feels realistic, the game glitches out entirely if you turn too hard, and the cars feel light, as if they were made of foam instead of metal. How a car ‘feels’ when playing a simulator determines how well it pulls you into the game. Crash Time 5 falls flat here in every possible way.

Skills don’t matter

The game is all about police officers attempting to finish various missions. Your goal is to try to get close to the ‘bad guys’ ala The Fast and The Furious racing game, but it’s a dice roll whether you can do it. One minute you’ll finish a mission and ace it. Repeat the same mission with the same car and the same skills, and you’ll finish miles behind. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to whether you win a game or not, and it’s more or less completely out of your hands.

Missions are repetitive

Assuming you get far enough in the game to play multiple missions, it quickly becomes obvious that the missions are all the same format. You won’t be doing anything new or exciting. The ‘track’ may change, but in the end, it is more or less the same objective over and over again.

This takes all the excitement of a new track and reduces it to about as much fun as your morning commute. By the time you get close to the end of the game, all the fun of the first runs have evaporated.

The crashes are nicely animated

With a title like “Crash Time 5” one would hope crashes in the game are worth watching. In this area the game does hold up to its name’s sake. Smash into another car and you’ll get to enjoy watching debris fly everywhere, frames crunch realistically, and cars swerving out of control in a realistic manner.

Pros:

• Crashes are worth watching

Cons:

• Everything else