Have You Played... Croc: Legend Of The Gobbos?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.

Now, I admit I played this on PlayStation in 1997, and never even knew there was a PC version. But there was. So I can fairly ask if you ever played this unfairly derided third-person action platformer.

I remember being surprised at the time at the negative reaction to Croc. This was by Argonaut, Jez San's team responsible for Starglider and Star Fox. Apparently it was originally intended to be a Yoshi game for Nintendo, but when rejected they redeveloped it as their own IP. I think there was quite a lot of either, "This isn't Mario!" or "This isn't by Rare!" snobbery surrounding it. You were a crocodile, gathering gems, and whacking baddies with your tail.

I distinctly remember playing it the same Summer I discovered The Divine Comedy's first two albums, Liberation and Promenade. I remember listening to both on loop, while playing this game, in spare mornings of that most glorious Summer holiday anyone ever has - the one after A Levels are over. As such, it is immediately associated with lovely times (these were the months before I learned how badly I'd failed my A Levels), so perhaps I'm biased. Gosh, I would love to have a lazy morning playing Croc and listening to Liberation.