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It has been almost three years since I went to a local cybercafe and got my first glimpse of the Nintendo 64. It was a Japanese N64, and the only game available was a Japanese Mario 64. I fell in love at first sight. This, I knew, was what 3D platform gaming was all about. Mario 64 didn't just play great. It also drew you into a world of wonder and fantasy. After that I made sure to buy a Nintendo 64 just as soon as it came out.

Half a year later I traded my Nintendo 64 for a Playstation, and I couldn't be happier. Various Mario clones have been released in the years since then, and I could never really get into them. Then Croc 2 came out, and it was time for me to write my review of it. Despite its cutesy look, Croc 2 showed a lot of potential, with a vast world to explore and varied gameplay. I didn't expect it to be Mario 64, but I was hoping that Croc 2 would be able to give me just a little of the feeling of wonder that Mario 64 did.

The game itself is well constructed, but it is plagued with gameplay issues. Read on to find out what's crippling this otherwise good game.

In Croc 2 our hero, Croc, is launched to another village inhabited by gobbos that are being harassed by Danitis, which look like demonic lobsters. Since Croc is stranded, he decides to help in the hope that he can find his parents along the way. You must talk to all of the troubled gobbos standing in front of big doors, then go through the door and complete the level. Then you return to the village and do it all over again. Because I encountered the problems first, let's talk about what's wrong with Croc 2.

Croc 2 is a very frustrating game. To begin with, the camera is controlled automatically, and it chooses angles that make it very difficult to play. It typically stays behind and just a little above Croc, limiting your view. When you jump, it tilts up to follow Croc, often taking the platform you want to land on out of sight. If Croc 2 were a religious experience that would be fine, but in a platform game each jump should not be a leap of faith.

Although you are free to choose to play any level in the village, the only way out of the village is to complete all of the levels. I was sorry to see this because one of the fine points of Mario 64 was that there was no need to complete every single level. This is a problem in Croc 2 because some levels are really hard. Sometimes it's also nice to be able to skip a level every now and then and move onto something new. Not in Croc 2, though.

Finally, the level of difficulty does not seem to be right for the target audience, which is a young crowd. If I was getting frustrated out of my mind, I can only imagine what a little kid would be like.

And now the good parts.

After a couple hours of getting past the enormous learning curve in Croc 2, I actually started to have fun. I kept wondering why I had to work so hard to make it fun, though. If I hadn't been playing this for a review I definitely would not have stuck with it long enough to enjoy it.

Croc 2 is also full of gameplay features. Even though the point of each level is to run and jump around until you reach the end, having a slightly different way to beat each one improves the interest value of the gameplay. Some of the extra features seemed to be half heartedly implemented, though. For example, the boat race is very slow and isn't particularly difficult.

Some of the difficulty of Croc 2 can be eliminated if you stop trying to get every crystal on the level. I found that my greed was often what got me killed, and when I ignored the shiny little crystals, I got a lot farther and had more fun.

Croc 2 is a long game with a huge world to explore, but the longevity is hindered by the difficulty of the levels. It's very easy to stop playing out of frustration.

Croc 2 really suffers in the controls department. First off, without an analog controller your movements are so haphazard that the game is next to impossible. Not that it's easy with one, of course.

Turning is really difficult in Croc 2, particularly on platforms and situations that require quick moves. For example, if you press left to turn, Croc will turn ninety degrees left and then start walking. Unfortunately the camera will not have turned around Croc by then, so you can easily walk off a cliff that way.

The controls are also very inaccurate even with the analog controller. Running in a straight line is much more difficult than it should be. Correcting yourself if you're not running in a straight line is even harder.

I found that the controls did seem to work better when Croc was running, but too much of the game requires careful setup for that to be a saving grace.

The graphics in Croc 2 make it look like a kid's game. The textures are bright and colorful and the models are exaggerated. Above all, everything is very cute like a little stuffed animal. The style is consistent throughout the game, and the simplicity of the models helps to keep the frame rate high. The camera clips through walls pretty often, and occasionally it gets stuck pointing the wrong way in tight spaces. The only way to fix that is to run out of the tight space, which isn't always easy when you're looking the wrong way.

The biggest problem with the graphics, though, is that there seems to be something wrong with the 3D engine. My depth perception seemed to be wrong for a long time until I got used to it. I don't think it's just me. I think the graphics don't accurately show where Croc is in relation to other things. This made the game very difficult in the beginning because I couldn't figure out why I wasn't making my jumps.

The music in Croc 2 is very upbeat and appropriate. The instruments are high quality, and though repetitive, the music doesn't get old. The only problem with it is that there seems to be a strange bug where it fades out for a couple seconds and then starts up again.

The sound effects are mostly standard bloops and dinks, but beware: The speech is disgustingly cute. It's in the style of Star Fox with little vocal sounds that sound a lot like baby speak. The only words Croc ever actually says are when you use his tail smash, and those were cute enough to make me want to tail smash all over the place. This cuteness of this game will give you cavities, so watch out!

Croc 2 has some nice features and very well designed levels. It's just way too hard to be fun. Manual control of the camera would have fixed a lot of problems, as would giving Croc some hitpoints. Maybe kids these days have some kinds of special abilities that I don't know about, but I would definitely rent this one before considering a purchase. On the other hand, it's a good tool if you want to teach your kids to deal with frustration.