3DO ZONE Forums

I've spent sometime with this today. It's not perfect, but it is actually fun. Was it the U.S. Launch title for the 3do or the pack-in game?

my 3do , and the old ad i recorded the audio from on 3do today says it came with crash and burn and john madden football packed in .

ahh. I remember John Madden was used for a Superbowl in the U.S. but was it a launch day pack-in game then too? Wow. It was a hell of a game mind you.

Crash n' burn was the pack-in game from day one, but Madden was not. In fact, the game was not even in a finished state in 4th quarter 93'. Too bad ... it would have sold alot of units!

I am falling in love with Carch 'N burn mind you. I put a couple of hours, and once you get to the good weapons and stuff, it's aces. The tracks are pretty neat too.

Trev wrote:Crash n' burn was the pack-in game from day one, but Madden was not. In fact, the game was not even in a finished state in 4th quarter 93'. Too bad ... it would have sold alot of units!

ah, ok. I was gonna say I didn't get John Madden Football, not that I would have played it anyway.

Funny fact: Some people refer to Crash n'Burn as "Rock n'Roll Racing 3D".. and in fact, "Rock n'Roll Racing 2" (AKA Red Asphalt) for Playstation, have a little resemblance with Crash n' Burn.

I gave this a spin last night. Didn't have time to do much, just a few attempts at Crash Course on Rally mode. Some of my reactions:

The opening FMV is very nice indeed for its time. I actually liked it more than the ones in Total Eclipse and Star Control II. The way that it shows you how the game fits into the larger world is an especially nice touch.

The lack of music outside of the races themselves doesn't leave a good first impression, and I imagine it must have been worse back when the game was first released. I understand that running FMV and music at the same time could be difficult at the dawn of the CD era, but why no music at the title screen? For that matter, the actual music is very bland and unnoticeable - quite a shock, since the composer is Burke Trieschmann (as usual for Crystal Dynamics).

The character designs are good, and even the live action FMV clips aren't embarrassingly dated. I like the whole futuristic racing concept: an old school idea for a next generation game.

The graphics are surprisingly impressive; it's not the best 3D seen on the 3DO by any means, but it's a solid leap up from anything seen pre-3DO. I played using Fang, and the way flames come off his car is a great touch, though I wish they have saved it for when the car had taken more than just one hit.

Though the racing itself is solid, I'm disappointed with the combat aspect thus far. Mainly because I get shot at a lot more than I have opportunities to shoot anyone. It seems like the instant my speed drops below that of one of my followers, they're already a tiny dot on the horizon ahead of me. While this does serve to highlight the game's draw distance, it makes them near impossible to hit, and I'm not sure any of my weapons have range that far anyway. On the rare instances I get to shoot at someone, the amount of hits it takes to kill them seems excessive.

My overall impression is on the positive end so far, though it is a bit sad that of the three Crystal Dynamics 3DO games that weren't ported to the Saturn, none of them have completely blown me away. I do look forward to getting into the game more so that I can experience the store and upgrading elements discussed in the manual.

Just wait until you encounter the black market cyborg, and the secret cars

dark wrote:Just wait until you encounter the black market cyborg, and the secret cars

Never actually bothered with that guys upgrades actually. Although, I may have bought the upgrade that makes you harder to lock on to.

Martiniii: you're right with regards to the excessive firepower required to destroy opponents, however, once you start upgrading your weaponry, you'll find it gets easier.

It's a good game, but painfully "next-gen 90's dude". Too much for it's own good imo. It dated very quickly indeed...

Minus the live-action actors and some of the cheesy music, I think Crash 'n Burn is pretty good. I played it for the first time a couple of years back and was hooked. But I also like futuristic racers.

I've been distracted from the 3DO for the past couple weeks, but yesterday I gave this another run. This time I played as Klaw, and tried out 1st person view. I don't know which of those is to blame, but this time I managed to complete Crash Course in Rally mode on my first try, albeit using all of my continues. I'm thinking it may be time to take on Tournament mode... 30 races is a lot, though. Is it possible to get around the limited continues problem by using the Game Guru to copy your save?

Usually I find 1st person view difficult to get a handle on in racing games, but this time I had little trouble with turning correctly. And the lock-on feature makes it much easier to use the weapons. Though I still wasn't able to destroy a single competitor through all five tracks, just being able to shoot the cars ahead of me is very gratifying. The manual says this feature is present in chase car view as well, but it's not nearly so clearly indicated. Which viewpoint do you guys prefer?

The graphics impress me more with each track. I have fear of heights, and the track where you race upon transparent skyways made me feel a bit ill. Quite impressive stuff for its time.

There is a way of diddling the continues. Check Game Faqs. I'll see if i can find it here somewhere. There is also a way of diddling more money.

Crash 'n Burn is actually pretty good. And yes, the rollercoaster feeling is fantastic. Not even Wipeout managed the same effect in my opinion.

AFAIK, the way to game the system in terms of continues, is to just reset the game if you are not going to win the race. The game autosaves from your last completed race, so you get a free chance to try the race over again from your last saved game.

dark wrote:AFAIK, the way to game the system in terms of continues, is to just reset the game if you are not going to win the race. The game autosaves from your last completed race, so you get a free chance to try the race over again from your last saved game.

Does it? That's really, really good to know. I had made an attempt to get through the entire Tournament mode, made it about 3/4 of the way and used my last continue. I couldn't restart from where I had left off after getting my last Game Over and had to start from the beginning again (frustrating to say the least, haha). If I try it again, I will remember this trick.

this game is one of the reasons I still have a 3DO. Not many games hold up as well as this one.

I played this on an emulator recently and the framerate was much smoother than on my 3DO!