Clive ‘N’ Wrench review: An ode to the golden age of 3D platformers

radiotimes.com:

When you make an homage, or a pastiche, you run the risk of appealing solely to a certain generation. But if you want newcomers to love it too, you’ll need to transcend the nostalgia with actual innovation.

Luckily, Numbskull Games’ Clive ‘N’ Wrench manages to do this. With challenging gameplay, inspired aesthetics, and a wicked sense of humour that courses through the whole thing, this back-to-basics title creates freshness out of simplicity.

As we at RadioTimes.com come from the generation of 3D platformers, we’ll try to remove the nostalgia goggles for our Clive ‘N’ Wrench review and remain objective. However, fans of the golden age of 3D platformers will feel particularly catered for every time they cross the word “checkpoint”.

The zany characters and humour remind us of Gex and Crash, and the familiar time travel setting conjures off-the-wall realms: aliens in ancient Egypt, voodoo-gangsters in a swamp, toxic waste in Victorian London. A lot of the PS1 platformers had a time travel themes: Crash 3: Warped, Bugs Bunny: Lost in Time, Ape Escape.

It’s a nifty means of using lore to create a variety of disparate locations, and Clive ‘n’ Wrench takes it to another level. Also, their time machine is a 1950s fridge-freezer – a cool flourish that adds to the game’s plethora of pop culture motifs.

Speaking of the lore… an anthropomorphic rabbit called Professor Nancy Mericarp, scientific genius and furry icon in the making, has been spending her years working on a time machine. One morning she wakes to find it’s been stolen by the evil Dr Daucus.

To help her thwart his evil plans, her cousin and apprentice – the titular Clive and Wrench respectively – team up to travel through time themselves in pursuit. Clive, of course, is