Reviews Crash Bandicoot Review

Ayen

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Crash Bandicoot is a video game franchise formerly developed by Naughty Dog and published by Universal Interactive Studios and exclusively for the Sony Playstation. Later on when the games were moved to other publishers it would cease being a Playstation exclusive and be available on multiple platforms. Once upon a time Crash Bandicoot was basically the Playstation’s equivalent of Mario and Sonic for the Nintendo and Sega respectively.

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Today we look at the game where our loveable Bandicoot ‘crash’ onto the scene in late August of 96. In case you haven’t figured it out already you play as Crash Bandicoot, an evolved Eastern Barred Bandicoot created by the evil Doctor Neo Cortex who planned to use him as his General for world conquest, but was dubbed a failure and escaped the laboratory he was created in, leaving Cortex to fall back on his companion, Tawna and our hero must embark on a quest to save her (the things we do for women).

Controls: You jump with the X button, can spin to attack your enemies with either the Square or Circle button and the Triangle button displays your Inventory. In each level you collect Wumpa Fruit, collect 100 and you earn an extra life. You can find some on the ground but they’re usually in crates that Crash can open by either jumping on them or with his spin attack. Some crates contain an extra life and a witch doctor mask called Aku Aku, who always sounds like he’s in the middle of a really complicated tongue twister when you summon him, which protects Crash allowing him to take an extra hit by enemies. Collect three and you become invincible temporarily, laying waste to your enemies and collecting items by simply approaching them. Some levels contains three crates with a picture of Tawna. Finding all three will bring you to a bonus stage where you can add to your Inventory.

There are over 30 levels in the game total, with some reoccurring themes, not just in the game itself but the franchise as a whole. The earliest example of this comes in level 4, 5 and 8. Level 4 introduces the Boulder Chase stages where you have to run away from a giant boulder that chase you through most of the level, and of course they add some crates on the road you’re running down, like you’re really going to go for them with impending death behind you. Level 5 is a water world level which will make a return in the sequel and level 9, Hog Wild, is where you ride on an animal for the remainder of the level.

Cons: I think the most annoying part about this game is saving data. Instead of just being able to save inbetween stages you can only save if you complete the bonus levels, the problem in this is they aren’t in every stage available and should you overlook the crates you need to unlock it or fail, you won’t be able to save. But Naughty Dog did rectify this problem in future titles and there are various passwords you can input for this so I guess it all worked out in the end.

Another thing, which is rather small in itself, is that the intro does not start when you begin the game. Instead it runs when you leave the main menu screen on for too long so a lot of people are probably going to miss the intro their first time playing this and not know what’s going on. Granted, that was always the case in video games back in the 80s, especially platformers, but for 1996? Even the game’s rival platform Super Mario 64 had the opening intro when you start the game and other video games in that time frame too so it is a small inconvenient for those expecting to see a cut scene. Not to mention it’s just plain weird to have it only cone on during the main title screen.

Crash Bandicoot doesn’t offer anything revolutionary for platformers of its time but I don’t think that what the game was going for. All this game is trying to be is a fun platformer game and it excels at that perfectly. So if you’re a fan of platformer games I would definitely recommend Crash Bandicoot for your gaming pleasure. A solid 7/10 for Naughty Dog’s favorite Bandicoot.
 
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