Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (PS1) Retro Review

The last of the series and an end to an amazing era as Naughty Dog take off their classy fedoras and place them on the hat.. hook thing and leave. This game was slightly better than the 2nd and was also a little shorter. I managed to complete it as a kid and the results were.. disappointed. It was great and it was one of my favourite PS1 titles up to this day.

Oh Naughty Dog. We miss you so much. Well, this game was released in 1998. A year after the original release of the second game. Do they time themselves or something? I don't think even Call of Duty produces games that quickly (Promise me.. we'll come to that game at a later time..). Like.. I swear they just start making a new game the moment they release the previous one, but this game wasn't bad. It was great and I loved it. I guess game sequels don't need a stupidly long time to create without it being a horrid mess of vomit on the floor. I should stop rambling now.

The game (as you would expect from the Godly Dogs) was set straight after the second one. No bullshitting you with filter. Just "new game" then boom!. The ruined space station of Cortex crash lands into some ruins and frees Uka Uka, Aku Aku's twin and evil brother. Uka Uka joins Cortex and the time-crazy Doctor Tropy to gather the power crystals (are you seeing the pattern being created here?) and bla bla.. Crash has to stop them and things.
This setting and the time thing going on allows the creators to make great and contrasting levels, from the roman times to the future. This resulted in amazing visuals. As like the previous game, this follows the main characters Crash and Coco.

Production of Crash Bandicoot: Warped began on January 1998, with Naughty Dog given only 10½ months to complete the game. 10.5 months and they nailed it and slammed it into our drooling mouths. What would a new game be without new engines? Well a shit one. Programmers Andy Gavin, Stephen White and Greg Omi created three new gameplay engines for the game. Two of the three new engines were three-dimensional in nature and were created for the airplane and jet-ski levels; the third new engine was created for the motorcycle levels in the style of a driving simulator. These engines made up a third of the game while the rest was given the previous engines of the last games. Jason Rubin explained that the "classic" engine and game style was preserved due to the success of the previous two games and went on to say that "were we to abandon that style of gameplay, that would mean that we would be abandoning a significant proportion of gamers out there." which I adore and I will treasure this comment to this day. When you have creators who put their gamers.. THEIR GAMERS first before their game.. then they are gaming saints. As most large companies depend on making more money and DLC nowadays. A real shadow was given to the Crash character at the request of the Sony Computer Entertainment America producers, who were "sick of that little discus that's following him around."
As always, Josh Mancell from Mutato Muzika had another part in the games music with also David Baggert and Mark Mothersbaugh, and the various different environments and time eras made the music producers work to create pieces to suit them all and they nailed it.

Crash Bandicoot: Warped is like the rest of the series; A platformer game. With the same objective as the previous game. Collect 25 power crystals and defeat Cortex. Much of the game takes place in the Time-Twisting Machine, which acts as the hub area of the game. The Time-Twisting Machine is split up into five chamber. Some levels contain a "Bonus Platform" that leads to a special bonus area, where the player must navigate through a separate area and collect everything in sight. Crash can do previous moves like spin attack and bouncing on enemies. And can use the Power slide and the body slam. This abilites can be upgraded when you defeat bosses which is a nice award for hard work and helps later on in the game.
The bosses are good. My favorite being Dingodile. They are all unique although Tropy's boss level is dull and repetitive at times. It wasn't bad but lacked more than the other bosses. There are levels requiring you to driving a bike and a plane. These are fun, I have to admit. They are easy to control but I don't really enjoy being forced to play in a different way than I want to.

This game was amazingly good. Critics agree with me, giving it a B+, 9s and 8s. It was made to be better but kept it's old charm that the previous games had. It was too bad that it was shorter and I wished they had added to it to make it a little longer. Although that might be due to me being too experienced with playing and completing this game, although I haven't completed it 100%, just the story. You should play it, even once. The nostalgia will kick in, and with that said I'm going to bed now.

Crash Bandicoot 2 (PS1) Retro Review

I would of put "Cortex strikes back" but it's long enough as it is. You know which game I'm talking about. This is the second game of the Crash Bandicoot series and it's (in my opinion) a better game than it's aging brother because of *insert heavenly music* Analog. Bless the mighty lord! Analog has come down and touched my heart. Oh, and polar bears are cute or something.. CRASH BANDICOOT..!

Oooh.. Naughty Dog was making games out it's own rectum. This game got it's original release in 1997. Only 2 years after the first game was made. It was also re-released in 1998 for the Sony greatest hits and the Best for family line-up. Naughty Dog knew what they were doing with this series and they worked hard to give us this game in only 2 years.

And even better? The game is set a moment after the crash (get it?) and fall of the final boss of the last game. Set in the Wumpa islands; Cortex kidnaps Crash and tricks him into thinking that he wants Crash to work with him to gain the power crystals from all the different levels to stop the world from being destroyed. You are joined with Crash's smart sister called Coco, who is skeptical of Cortex's plans and also Nitrus Brio, whom tries to persuade Crash into collecting gems, so either way; You're someone's bitch.
It's a good thing that the game works into the last game's plot, although it doesn't stop new gamers from picking it up and playing with out being that confused with it, as the story doesn't revolve around Crash and his girlfriend anymore and is even placed in a "hub world" which actually lets you save when you feel like it.

The game was given a new engine by Andy Gavin. The"Game-Oriented Object LISP 2"(GOOL 2) was created to be three times faster than the one previously and could handle ten times the animation frames and twice the amount of polygon count, making the visuals more smoother to the naked eye and it was so beautiful. The jungle levels were originally to have featured ground fog, but this was abandoned when magazines and the public began to criticize other developers for using fog to hide polygon count. Sunlight and depth accentuation was experimented with for these levels. Naughty Dog created the sewer levels as a way to work some "dirty" locations in the game. Color contrast was added to the levels to show depth and break up the repetitive monotony of the endless sewer pipes. This game was given amazing new things to make the visuals more appealing and upgrade from the old, primal image the old game possessed. The soundtrack was written by Josh Mancell from Mutato Muzika, who was also responsible for the music in the old game which you do see the similar sounds and music, but there is a slight change to make it more fresh and different.

The goal of this game (unlike the old game) is to gather 25 crystals for Cortex. The game takes place in a series of "Warp Rooms", which act as the hub areas of the game. Each Warp Room contains five doors leading to a level and YOU CAN SAVE AT ANY TIME. This was such a big difference from the old game and I'm so glad that I don't have to deal with the saving frustration anymore. I want no part in it. You can Spin and jump like the older game, and you fight bosses too. Although, the bosses in this game seem fairly easy and not much of a challenge but that's just me, maybe they were hard for other people and I'm just too fucking good at gaming?. Crash can also body slam boxes and enemies and also use the power slide to slide across the ground. All of these techniques can be used as offensive measures against most enemies, which serve to deter Crash's progress. Enemies with deadly topsides cannot be jumped on, while enemies that attack from the front or have side spikes must be jumped on or undergo a body slam. This various was slimly added to the old game but was limited due to the lack of attacks that Crash could do, but I'm glad that there is a purpose for the moves added in this game. The boxes make a return, giving wumpa fruit, extra lives and Aku Aku masks to help you on your adventure, but there are also Bonus Paths, which are used to get more extra lives and wumpa fruit.

This game was better, not the best, but better. It kept to it's roots but made sure to create something that is a new experience. The hub world was a great installment although I did enjoy the map view that the old game had. This game can be beaten fairly quick if you know what you're doing so it's a good game to pass the time or have a gaming night with friends. Just don't forget this PS1 classic because it really shows you how gaming as a whole has changed and evolved.

Crash Bandicoot (PS1) Retro Review

(Note: Sorry for my absence. Not that you care anyway.)

Oh this game... Oh.. this game. Most people my game have endured the frustration of trying to complete this game. 100% was god damn impossible and I hated how hard it was. Was it a bad game though? Hell no! Well.. It was good although I played Crash Bandicoot: Warped. So the controls were a little stiff, but for 1995. This game was the absolute shit, but why was this game the shit? or at least "meh" for me as a kid. Well we will find out. So put on your orange hats and blue shorts as we go into the depths of the first 1995 Crash Bandicoot.

As you were told a paragraph ago; This game was released in 1995. Quite an early PS1 game which I'm surprised that I owned since I was born that young. Wow. This game is 19 years old.. making you feel old and depressed yet? Good, because that's what I'm here for. Anyway The series, originally exclusive to the Sony, was created by some amazing people called Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin during their stay at the drooling piece of fantastic game company, Naughty Dog. Naughty Dog was great in the old years and it's sad to say that since they left this orange monster, The series just went downhill (Although Crash and Bash wasn't that bad of a game for a first go)

As with all games in the same era; The story was simple and easy to understand. The end goal: save your girlfriend, because we are a faithful Bandicoot. In the prologue. It is shown with the evil Dr Cortex as he experiments with a bandicoot but it goes wrong and Crash escapes, leaving him to save the girlfriend he left behind. The setting at the first few levels is the Wumpa islands, where you must travel to various environments to find Dr Cortex and save your girlfriend. It's a fairly simple goal to grasp and even with the lack of speech with Crash. The visuals are shown clearly what we are aiming to achieve.

Like Spyro. It's hard to grasp the visuals and graphics with a positive outlook as I am a little biased as I have been around more modern games with higher quality. Crash Bandicoot wasn't a bad looking game at it's time. Heck, it was more than that if you compare them with other games of that year. The infamous polygons are there but don't ruin the game in anyway, and there are moments in the game where the old PS1 look shines through. It wasn't as good as the 2nd one and the 3rd one, but it still had a comedic charm to the graphics. The music was the thing that was great. It was bouncy, energetic and really felt like part of the Bandicoot experience.

Now this is where the I have a few problems with the first Crash Bandicoot which the sequels did a little bit better. Crash had the basic move set for all platformers, give or take some control differences between other games. You could spin and jump onto boxes, and move about with the D-pad, and there was no Analog. You were restricted to using the d-pad. For you youngsters, here's a little PS1 trivia for you. Back in the day of retro gaming, there were older controllers that didn't even have an analog stick. This was due to the old age of the game and it was extremely hard to get used to after years and years of using the analog. This wasn't the game's fault so I won't reduce marks for it. Next issue I had with this game was not being able to save at a regular basis. You had to either collect all the boxes in one level (in one go) or complete a bonus challenge. This was horridly tedious for me as a kid and it was so frustrating having all your work wasted away by a cheap death then finding yourself miles away from your previous level. Yes: It does work with adding to the challenge of the game, but I feel as if this was purposely planned then it's quite a cheap way of making you play a long ago to make up for those deaths. I can also see how this also helps players learn to value their lives but if you die from a cheap death then it sucks to be you (considering that you can only get hit once). It was fairly easy to die, although you could pick up useful "Aku Aku" masks to let you take an extra hit, if you collect three of them then you are invulnerable for a few seconds or so, which was a VERY important item to collect.

This game was a good game with a bad way of saving and primal controls. I guess simple is better but the other two games are just better in saving and controls. I can't say this game was bad because it was from 1995. It was amazing at it's time but the primal controls make it age horribly. If you're a fan then I can't blame you for loving this game, and even to me this game brought back so many good memories of screaming at my television and throwing my controller at the wall. If you want a real challenge and you're a hardcore gamer, then try beating this game, since I know I won't.