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CID The Dummy Review for PlayStation Portable (PSP)

CID The Dummy Review for PlayStation Portable (PSP)

You Won’t Learn a Lot
from this Dummy

Crash test dummies made their mark on popular culture back in the 1980s through a series of public service announcements. Almost any time you turned on the television, Vince and Larry would appear with slapstick warnings about the importance of always wearing your safety belt when in a vehicle. Although the dummies were always a tad on the creepy side, they were amusing characters and as such, got their message across to that decade’s youth. After a few decades out of the public eye, crash test dummies are perhaps once again trying to warn children of possible dangers. However, instead of promoting vehicle safety, CID the Dummy is actually a cautionary tale of how uncontrollable anger can be caused by playing an awful video game.

CID The Dummy screenshot

Before I get into exactly what makes the game an infuriating mess to play, let me fill you in on a bit of the storyline. CID is your basic crash test dummy, living out every day being repeatedly slammed into a wall behind the wheel of various vehicles. Understandably, CID grows tired of this repetitive existence and yearns for a change, which quickly comes when professor Werken’s daughter is kidnapped. After being fitted with a suit that supplies him with new and improved abilities, CID must track down and defeat the evil D-Troit (ugh, terrible puns throughout) to free Werken’s daughter.

I find it hard not to laugh at the irony of CID wanting a change of pace in life, given that CID the Dummy is one of the most lifeless, generic, and derivative games you’ll ever play. CID the Dummy feels very much like a scrapped concept from the 80s picked straight out of the trash, dusted off, and then slightly updated. The game is your basic 2.5D platformer with some rudimentary combat, stealth, and puzzle elements thrown in for good measure. None of these aspects work particularly well alone, and they certainly don’t get any better when mixed together.

CID The Dummy screenshot

Many, but not all, of the game’s problems are caused directly by the perspective of the in-game camera. Instead of having a behind the character view like a Crash Bandicoot game or even a three-quarter view, the camera is positioned as though the game was a strictly 2D side-scroller, with only a very slight amount of elevation. This frequently makes it next to impossible to determine the depth of field necessary to make it through the game’s levels, which all assume you can tell where your character, enemies, and platforms are positioned in this space.

Because of the game’s awkward camera perspective, controlling CID is often clunky at best, unreliable at worst. Jumping from one platform to the next, which should be the most basic of aspects in the game, can instead become infuriating as you may not realize that the platform is either further back or forward from where you will be landing. As an example, in one level there is an hour and a minute indicator from a clock spinning above some poison gas, requiring an absurd amount of precision and timing from your jump to land on one of them, made nearly impossible by the awkward view. Expect to fall cheaply to your doom countless times due to this unfortunate camera angle choice.

CID The Dummy screenshot

The terrible camera also makes the game’s lackluster combat more of a chore than it should be. CID can make use of both ranged and melee combat. Melee combat is pretty simple, relying on the repetitive mashing of a single button to repeatedly perform a multi-punch combo. While this is fairly bland, at least it works, which is more than I can say for the ranged combat. CID’s ranged attacks utilize a bazooka that he always has handy, which can also change between different ammunition that he finds throughout the game such as rubber bullets, fire, and ice rounds. Many enemies in the game are made slightly easier to defeat due to their weaknesses to specific types of ammo, which makes the fact that it is virtually impossible to aim given your perspective that much more aggravating. If you do happen to attempt to use the bazooka during combat, much of your limited ammo is usually spent just trying to get the correct angle on your foe so that your shots will actually make contact.

CID The Dummy screenshot

With the camera making the most basic of platforming and combat challenges needlessly too difficult, it seems rather odd that this game, targeted towards a younger audience, would go even one step further to ensure the player won’t make it through the title. I’m of course speaking about the game’s poor checkpoint system and reliance on a finite number of lives.

Throughout every level, you’ll come across several checkpoints that will allow you to start at that point rather than needing to completely restart from the beginning. Unfortunately, this only holds true as long as you have lives. If you manage to lose all of your lives during a level, say from continuously missing platforms or not being able to hit enemies at a distance, you’ll find yourself having to restart the level again from the beginning. Whereas in most games this may not seem like a punishment, because it allows you to learn from your mistakes and correct them on your next try, you can’t fix this game’s terrible camera, so making it through levels often just boils down to a matter of getting lucky with some jumps and/or with bazooka fire.

Sadly, CID the Dummy just doesn’t get much right. While the gameplay isn’t completely terrible, it is made so due to the awful camera that has been implemented. The characters and enemies in the game don’t really exude any kind of charm either, making the game feel rather generic and unimportant while playing. You’ll also hear the same few unfunny dialogue clips regurgitated more times than you’ll care to count during the course of the game. In fact, perhaps the best thing about the game is its visuals because they are at least on par with most other PSP offerings. However, if you’re looking for an entertaining platforming experience that won’t make you want to spike your PSP off the ground, you should definitely look elsewhere.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 2.7 Graphics
The graphics, especially during cutscenes, are decent but nothing really stands out. 1.6 Control
Trying to jump and shoot in three dimensions is pretty much impossible when you aren’t really able to see in three dimensions. 2.0 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
CID’s repetitive one-liners such as “who’s the dummy now” can get annoying very quickly, yet you’ll be subjected to them repeatedly throughout the entirety of the game. 1.8 Play Value
With bad controls, a terrible camera, and an unforgiving life and checkpoint system, don’t expect to play this one for very long. 1.9 Overall Rating – Avoid
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Game Features:

  • FIGHT: Learn from the Professor how to fight, beat your opponents – and watch out for those zombies!
  • SPRINT: You’ll need to gather up some speed to burst through walls and barriers – use the catapult to really gain some speed.
  • BAZOOKA: Use your bazooka, take aim at your targets and really blast ’em!
  • PANIC: When all else fails – panic! Get that adrenalin going – who knows what you’re capable of!

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