The Positives
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The addictive gameplay that Crimsonland offers is something special, the game will have you hooked very quickly. The different enemy types, guns and perks that you will unlock throughout your time playing always keeps the game entertaining while making you feel constantly rewarded.
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Going through Crimsonland’s somewhat boring campaign is not a complete waste. Besides the mindless fun time you will have massacring through, you will unlock upgrades for the “Survival Mode”. These perks will not be available to use during the campaign, which is a bummer, but rather only used in ‘Survival”.
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Survival Mode” could easily be the best part of Crimsonland. Going in solo or with your couch co-op buddies, you will face off against random enemy types that you have met through the campaign. The mode is pretty self explanatory, survive as long as you can and see where you rank in the leaderboards. Survival mode is more than just surviving though, it has a deep tactical strategy behind it. Weapons, perks and enemies will spawn in at random, particular guns will take out specific enemies quicker, which keeps you on your feet.
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In fact the enemies AI is so good, it deserves to be added to the positive list. Enemies in Crimsonland aren’t just fun to blow through, but it also requires you to think quickly & strategically. With the plethora of different enemy types, each have their own separate move list which requires you to adapt to them on the fly.
The Negatives
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Sound and graphics for a modern top-down shooter are way below the standards. Games like Helldivers and Dead Nation are much more impressive looking that really show off their console’s powers.
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As fun as Crimsonland is, it will only take you a little while to realize that you have been essentially doing the same thing over and over again. Repetitiveness could have been avoided if 10tons added some sort of story campaign.
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No campaign is a whole another negative part of the game. Dead Nation had the similar problem where you started to feel like the work your doing doesn’t matter, but the only difference was there was some sort of story implemented. In Dead Nation you would travel from checkpoint to checkpoint. In Crimsonland all you're doing is going through each level, which has no coherent flow to it. Levels just started to feel random and test my patience.
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Online Co-op was a much needed feature for Crimsonland. You won't always have your friends over to play couch co-op games anymore. Most co-op games are online which allows you access to a whole world of people, which could have made the multiplayer portion much more fun.
When Crimsonland released way back on the PC in 2003, little did it know it was going to be ported to PS3, PS4, PS Vita and now Xbox One. 10tons studios created one of the most addicting top-down shooters ever. Thats a bold statement to make in a opening paragraph in a review, but Crimsonland could back it up. The pure enjoyment when playing this game is like no other, but does the addictive gameplay get too repetitive? How does Crimsonland hold up to other modern top-down shooters? Let’s find out.
