Part 12: ManxomeBromide - Crossroads 2
Let's Play Crossroads 2: Pandemonium!Compute! Gazette, December 1988, Issue 66, Vol. 6, No. 12
Summary
It's been a year since you've come to the crossroads, and things haven't gotten much better. In fact, it could be said that things are significantly worse. New gangs of creatures have moved in. They're smarter. They're faster. They're more powerful.
Crossroads 2 is an expanded, more sophisticated, and faster version of Crossroads. There are now sixteen creature types (pictured above), eight mazes, a level editor, and powerups.
Crossroads 1 was balls-to-the-wall chaos. A funny saying, that—it has nothing to do with anything vulgar at all. It's about centrifugal governors on steam engines.
Which I bring up, because while Crossroads 1 was balls-to-the-wall, Crossroads 2 removes the governor entirely.
Click Image, Get Dizzy
The Good
All the good things about Crossroads, except now it's also running at Hotline Miami speeds. I particularly like the inclusion of pure-ally creatures (the dog), and the way the demo screen runs faster than the human eye can reasonably follow.
The Bad
This really was meant to be played by people who had played the first one to death and now found it sedate and boring. The learning curve is not kind. The best I've ever done so far is level 8, and the "the real Crossroads 2 starts here" point is level 19.
The Weird
Don't settle for competitors who are DOING IT WRONG. You might find that all your backups are TOTALLY BROKEN.
The Verdict
Do you enjoy hurting people? Then this is the 8-bit game for you!
Seriously, though, you're gonna want to play Crossroads 1 first. Crossroads 2 will be sitting there next to it, eyeing you both, super-unimpressed.
Downloads
The SA Gazette Disk is rocking with a ton of new content, including all of McGee's fine work for the thread, by which I mean go play Crossroads right now. The Crossroads 2 map editor is kind of tricky to actually set up and use; I'll do an instructional post later on for the curious.