Crash Team Rumble's Beta Delivers an Undercooked Helping of Wumpa on PS5, PS4 | Push Square

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Crash Bandicoot doesn't have the greatest pedigree regarding spin-off video games. Crash Team Racing is a bonafide classic and deserves that recognition, but titles like Crash Bash, Crash Boom Bang, and Crash Tag Team Racing are pretty forgettable. After playing the recent closed beta, while not as extreme, we feel pretty safe saying you can add Crash Team Rumble to that list.

Crash Team Rumble is a 4v4 game built on the idea of gathering 2,000 Wumpa Fruit faster than the opposition. Everyone runs around the arena breaking crates and occasionally grabbing relics that can be used to activate special pads specific to the map you're playing on. Examples include bounce pads, rolling ball power-ups, and Oxide or Uka Uka coming in to attack. Your team can also boost their Wumpa input by taking control of gem platforms.

With the above rules laid out, Crash Team Rumble isn't a bad game by any means, but it's pretty basic. This feels like a game originally envisioned as a side mode in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time that was forced into becoming its own thing. Matches are quick, and there's a certain level of fun here, but it's not something that made us want to return to it repeatedly. At times, we forced ourselves to keep playing. Much more often than not, our games were blowouts. One team gets rolling, and it seemed nearly impossible to stop that momentum.

The same visual treats in It's About Time are here, with each character looking and behaving as you would expect, but there still feels to be a level of charm missing. Characters are split into three classes. Crash and Tawna are Scorers, characters dedicated to grabbing Wumpas and banking them. Dingodile is a Blocker looking to tank up and stop the enemy team, and Coco