Crystal Cannon Combat

Introduction

"Crystal Cannon Combat" was developed by SteelShield utilizing Multimedia Fusion 2 and is easily among the worst games I've ever played. This is largely because the game is insanely difficult for all of the wrong reasons! This isn't to say that difficult games are bad, but the difficulty in this game is largely the result of enemies being given way too many advantages over the player. Though, I suppose I should discuss the gist of the story before I jump into all of my issues with the gameplay.

Story

The story behind "Crystal Cannon Combat" is needlessly convoluted. Seriously, the story behind this game starts out with North Korea launching massive cyber attacks against every country in the world as some sort of prelude to a take over, but why would North Korea even bother with such tactics if it can field an army of invincible tanks and unstoppable monsters? Seriously, the story could drop all of the stuff about hackers, Microsoft, Apple, and so on and would only be better for it.

Gameplay

"Crystal Cannon Combat" suffers from many serious and frustrating design flaws. Among the most obvious is that the player's various attacking beams are way too short. In fact, you'll need to be practically on top of the enemy in order to hit them. Which is rather unfair when the enemy can snipe you from off-screen. Another issue that plagues the game is that it takes far to long to destroy an enemy with your beam. In fact, I usually needed to use about 50% of my anti-tank or anti-monster beams to destroy a single target. To make matters worse the enemy shots can readily pass through solid objects which means its impossible for the player to use buildings as either an obstacle to set up ambushes or to avoid enemy fire. And to add insult to injury even if an enemy has been destroyed they can still launch attacks at you until they disintegrates completely. And to continue to pile on issues with the enemies. Only the enemy buildings and tanks are visible on the mini-map which means you can be driving directly towards a monster and not be aware of it until it starts firing at you from off-screen.

Though to end on a somewhat positive note. The control scheme for this game is easy enough to pick up and use. Unfortunately, you'll need to spend the better part of half a minute looking at the instructions before they'll scroll down far enough for you to learn what they are.

Graphics & Sound

In terms of visuals and sound the game is alright. Though, I suppose I'm not the hardest of people to please on this front.

Conclusion

"Crystal Cannon Combat" is an extremely difficult game because of bad design. As it stands I'd recommend people to stay far away from this game at all costs. Since, this game will only manage to piss you off in it's current state.

Suggestions

01) Give the player a longer beam so that they can also hit enemies from off-screen or shorten the range of enemy attacks to match the player's.

02) Give the player shields that regenerate automatically. Or at the very least make enemy monsters melee units so it's easier to take them out in order to collect their crystals.

03) Make the monsters visible on the mini-map.

04) Make the anti-tank and anti-monster weapons more powerful so the player isn't expending most of their gauge to take out a single target. Or massively speed up how quickly they regenerate so it's easier to do sweeping turns with the beam activated.