Croc Mobile Pinball!

[SoniCroc]

www.morpheme.co.uk/cp_microsite/
Okay, so it doesn't look like the best game in the world. But this means that Croc Mobile wasn't a one-time Croc comeback... Which could mean that we might adventually get a new Croc game!

[shadowpanda]

Looks pretty cool, it's always good to see interest in Croc.

[Forte Wily]

They're also working on a second Croc Mobile title, if you're interested - www.morpheme.co.uk/newsletter7/index.html . It's titled "Croc Mobile - Volcanic Panic", and it revolves around King Rufus' wedding (!!) to a new character to the series, named Princess Tara. Of course, you can guess what's going to happen to Princess Tara, and all of the wedding guests, no? ;P

I must say that I also continue to keep up hope for a new Croc title on home-consoles or handhelds, though (however unlikely it may be) - and hopefully a totally multi-platform one, as the series has always provided in the past.

[shadowpanda]

In all honesty, I gave up hope of a new Croc game when there were no announcements of a Croc DS.

Perhaps Nintendo can somehow get him into Smash Bros Revolution ?

[SoniCroc]

Eh, I highly doubt that will happen! Croc was one of the least popular game series, as far as I remember. Sure, they're good games, but almost everything in them was copied from Mario and Sonic. But if you ask me, that was mostly fixed in Croc 2, though. And plus, it's geared towards younger people. It's not the kind of game for 'hardcore gamers.' Those people really waist their lives, if you ask me.

[Forte Wily]

I'd hardly call sales of several million units "least popular". Croc's popularity was at least respectable, even though he's near-enough unheard of by many nowadays.

It's worth noting that in general most games will only sell to 5% of a given console's worldwide userbase at the most (10% if they're REALLY lucky and have wide-ranging appeal, but it doesn't happen often - note that this is why it was incredible when Nintendogs was picked up by 15% of the DS' userbase during its first few weeks on sale, before it was even available everywhere in the world, and of course this percentage is most likely higher now as the game continues to sell well). I'm fairly sure that at least Croc: Legend of the Gobbos got picked up by a few percent of the PSX and Saturn userbases (and probably got a decent number of Windows 95 sales, too). I know that Croc 2 didn't sell as well, though - if I recall correctly it only sold around half as many copies as the first game.

If memory serves, incidentally, Croc 1 was meant to pay homage to the games that the developers grew up with, in places.

As for being geared toward younger people... Have you played Croc 2? Sure as heck that wasn't geared toward younger people. Even I found it frustrating and aggravating in places (the evil snow-head level, anyone?). Heck, Croc 1 wasn't exactly geared that way either - but it did have the right balance so as to appeal to all ages (something I don't truly feel 2 had).

I don't quite get what you mean about "hardcore gamers", though...

[SoniCroc]

admin said:

I'd hardly call sales of several million units "least popular". Croc's popularity was at least respectable, even though he's near-enough unheard of by many nowadays.

It's worth noting that in general most games will only sell to 5% of a given console's worldwide userbase at the most (10% if they're REALLY lucky and have wide-ranging appeal, but it doesn't happen often - note that this is why it was incredible when Nintendogs was picked up by 15% of the DS' userbase during its first few weeks on sale, before it was even available everywhere in the world, and of course this percentage is most likely higher now as the game continues to sell well). I'm fairly sure that at least Croc: Legend of the Gobbos got picked up by a few percent of the PSX and Saturn userbases (and probably got a decent number of Windows 95 sales, too). I know that Croc 2 didn't sell as well, though - if I recall correctly it only sold around half as many copies as the first game.

If memory serves, incidentally, Croc 1 was meant to pay homage to the games that the developers grew up with, in places.

As for being geared toward younger people... Have you played Croc 2? Sure as heck that wasn't geared toward younger people. Even I found it frustrating and aggravating in places (the evil snow-head level, anyone?). Heck, Croc 1 wasn't exactly geared that way either - but it did have the right balance so as to appeal to all ages (something I don't truly feel 2 had).

I don't quite get what you mean about "hardcore gamers", though...

millions of copies... Well, I missed that! I don't get where I got that idea from, then. But it did get pretty bad reviews on sites like Ign, Gamespot, etc.
As for the age, I simply meant that a teen might not want to pick a game with little brown furry cute things on in. But they don't know what they're missing!
The hardcore gamers... well, there are some people who completely devote themselves to becoming the master at games.
But anyway, it would be nice if Croc was in SSB, but I don't know if anyone will remember him.

[Forte Wily]

And of course, there would be all of the licensing issues if Nintendo and HAL Labs wanted, for whatever reason, to include another company's character in their game...

As for "hardcore gamers", that term has so many definitions it's not funny. XD

Lastly, with regard to reviews, in the end, they're really personal opinions - just because some folks don't like or enjoy something, doesn't necessarily make it bad or unpopular (a good example of this fact is that there are shining reviews for games like E.T. on the Atari 2600, in spite of popular opinion about the game. They make for interesting reading.). I'd speculate that at least some of the bad reviews that Croc: Legend of the Gobbos got may have been caused by people wanting and hyping themselves up for a Super Mario 64-alike on other consoles, and then being disappointed when they didn't get it. There's no real way of knowing for sure, though.

[SoniCroc]

Eh, SM64 wasn't all that good if you ask me. It's pretty boring.
But the main thing I like about Croc is the storyline and characters more than anything. Infact, I'm planning on making an animation of Croc soon!
I've heard in places that Sonic might end up in the new SSB, so that ads a bit of light.

[Forte Wily]

The rumour that Sonic might be in the new Super Smash Bros. is most likely to be completely false (thankfully). I've seen it being perpetuated too, on the basis of an interview where it was claimed that he allegedly "almost" got into Super Smash Bros. Melee - something I find hard to believe, as no good reason was given for why it then "didn't happen", if memory serves (this tends to make me think that it was never going to happen in the first place - it's just plain common sense).

As for Super Mario 64, I personally think it's a great game - but to each their own.

Good luck with the animation of Croc, by the way. How are you going to make it? (E.g., pens-and-paper, Macromedia Flash, or maybe something else?)

[SoniCroc]

It's going to be made by scanning in drawings, etc. The storyline is coming along nicely, and there are some new characters.

[shadowpanda]

Croc animation sounds nice, you'll post it here first, of course?

I don't think Sonic will be in the new Super Smash Bros game, but I've been wrong before about these things (Spawn (I'm a big Spawn fan) in Soul Calibur, for example ) before.