	CID The Dummy
	Developer: Twelve Interactive Publisher: Oxygen Games Release Date: Out Now Players: One	Words By:
CID The Dummy may have ambitions to be the new Sonic or Mario, but let’s cut straight to the chase; with generic looks and gameplay such as this he’ll be forgotten sooner than the latest winner of American Idol. The game feature a crash test dummy called CID (that’s Crash Impact Dummy), and he’s sent by his owner, Professor B.M. Werken (B.M.W.??) to rescue his daughter MIA (Missing In Action ???), who has been kidnapped by half-man, half-crash dummy uber-baddie of the game called D-TROIT (Oh God!), and his army of evil dummies. Now if you’re sick of “funny” acronyms in games and this all sounds a bit rubbish then yep, it is - but to be honest it’s probably no dafter or clichéd than 95% of all household platform adventure game plots & characters, so let’s not get too disillusioned just yet. For some reason, bless ‘em, developers will still spend incalculable amounts of time making up “funny” and “clever” names, plots and backgrounds for characters when all we want is something that’s fun to play, and be damned with the life histories of the cast and crew… And this is where CID The Dummy falls flat on his stupid plastic face. Playing as a pseudo-3D, mostly side-scrolling platformer CID (an advanced crash test dummy with personality) the game consists of the sort of simplistic puzzles and tiresome “find the key to the door to progress” type missions that have been around for donkeys’ years. There are some driving sections, stealth sections (too many) and boss battles that seem to be either frustratingly hard or ridiculously easy. Some sloppy control (CID isn’t the most responsive of characters) and ineffective weapons (even CID’s bazooka) and a hopeless, wimpy-looking punch (or it could be dodgy collision detection) also add to the malaise. The best part of CID gameplay is without doubt his Panic Mode, which can be activated if you have collected 10 orbs to clear an area of enemies, a bit like a smart bomb. The potential for a game with a virtually indestructible hero with no human awareness or regard for his own safety sounded great to me, but the developers seem to have missed that point, and the generic gameplay fails to excite or addict and you’ll feel you’ve done it all before elsewhere, only much better. Some unkind checkpoints that force you to replay tiresome sections over and over again will also make you want to take either the CID UMD and box, or your PSP itself for a crash test. Graphically CID is what could generously be called a “mixed bag”. CID and most of the other on-screen characters and machines are poorly animated, but then I don’t really know how a crash test dummy moves. The levels look colourful but bland at the same time, and do nothing whatsoever to stretch the PSP’s graphical muscles. The voice acting all sounds like they were disinterested and “phoned it in”, or maybe was done by the tea room staff… And the music - such as it is - is so bad that you’ll be looking for the options menu. I wanted to like CID, but the characters within the game, including CID himself are strangely disagreeable, and the gameplay - that had so much potential - so half-hearted and flawed that I could only recommend the game if you saw it on sale really cheap somewhere. Keep looking around when you’re out though, because you might find a copy lying where the previous owner has chucked it to, it might even be the one I used for this review.

Best Bits
- Nope, can’t think of any

Worst Bits
- Clunky, boring, generic gameplay
- Funny acronyms are C.R.A.P. and O.L.D.
- Ugh! boss battles
- Rubbish driving sections
- Poor graphics
- Don’t be a dummy
- You can’t kill CID in painful enough ways for my liking


by: Diddly