Crash Bandicoot: The Thread

[Chaos Warp]

To market Crash nowadays you'd probably have to rely on a sizeable amount of PS1 trilogy nostalgia. 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

To market Crash nowadays you'd probably have to rely on a sizeable amount of PS1 trilogy nostalgia. 

Or Market it as a sequel to Twinsanity; either'd work these days.

[Tani Coyote]

To market Crash nowadays you'd probably have to rely on a sizeable amount of PS1 trilogy nostalgia. 

 

Nostalgia worked well enough for Generations. I'm sure Sony or whoever else made a new game could do it. While at the same time hopefully working on something new so that future games can reel in newer gamers.

[Chooch]

Crash 2.. kinda sucks.

 

When the level design isn't boring you to death it's frustrating you with bullshit hazard and enemy placement and gimmick levels with poor controls. None of the bosses are fun either. I will never understand why Naughty Dog thought it was a good idea to purposefully make the controls for the jetpack levels awkward and confusing or leave a lot of level navigation to random guess work and memorization.

 

Crash 3 may have some genre roulette that people dislike but I'll take a thousand motorcycle, jet ski, plane flying and tiger riding stages over anything with a fucking jetpack. The power ups in Crash 3 also make it feel like a more rewarding and varied experience. It helps that the bosses are actually really fun and have tons of character to them.

 

It's not a terrible game and I don't regret buying and/or replaying it but it just made me appreciate the other games in the series more than anything. I don't think I'll go back to Crash 2 any time soon.

[Tani Coyote]

Well, I've been told I need to play Crash 1 and 2, but that certainly is swaying me against trying the latter...

With regards to botched design, I always wondered what happened with Wrath of Cortex. Was it rushed? The amount of time it takes to save and load in that game is criminal, to the point I ponder if the makers of Sonic 06 used it as inspiration.

[MegasonicZX]

I say at least give crash 1 a try since i have actually played that one and can say its okay but that was a long time ago so don't take my word for it, as for crash 2, its actually the only one of the crash games I haven't played so I still need to try that.

[Your Vest Friend]

Honestly, Crash 3 comes off as less cohesive than Crash 2 to me. 

[CrashRatchetFan]

With regards to botched design, I always wondered what happened with Wrath of Cortex. Was it rushed? The amount of time it takes to save and load in that game is criminal, to the point I ponder if the makers of Sonic 06 used it as inspiration.

Traveller's Tales Knutsford were only given 12 months to whip up The Wrath of Cortex, hence the bland gameplay and loading times. If TT were given enough time to sprucen up the project and add some variety to it, it might've been better. I played it awhile back and enjoyed it but the game truly does have some terrible bits to it.

Heck, if it was developed to be a free-roaming title(as originally planned), it would've brought Crash to a whole new league.

And as for Crash 2, it's the best of the entire series and rarely do sequels do better than the originals and I still think it holds up to this day.

[Chooch]

Honestly, Crash 3 comes off as less cohesive than Crash 2 to me. 

I can understand Crash 3 feeling less cohesive than Crash 2 but that doesn't really mean it's less fun at all.

[Person]

I love Crash 3, but I'd honestly prefer to do Crash 2's jetpack levels over Crash 3's motorcycle levels. Then again, the jetpack can be incredibly frustrating at times. I do find the Crash 3 Coco stages to be a lot of fun, though. I still cannot decide which game I like better. I was at least able to get 105% in Crash 3, I should try to do it in Crash 2 sometime. Forget Crash 1, though. I will never be able to 100% that game, I don't have the skill to do each level and get every box in 1 go without dying. The save system of Crash 1 kinda stinks, too. But, I still love the game regardless.

[Jango]

I'll take a thousand motorcycle, jet ski, plane flying and tiger riding stages over anything with a fucking jetpack. The power ups in Crash 3 also make it feel like a more rewarding and varied experience. It helps that the bosses are actually really fun and have tons of character to them.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJdng6ewyVQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=319

 

Point in the video, and is not that hard. And the bear stages are fucking awesome. I always liked Crash 2 more, especially because of the level tropes. I dunno, there's something mystical about snow and temples at night. Not to mention the soundtrack is much better, the jetpack theme speaks for itself.

[Mr Loopone]

I didn't find any problems with Crash Bandicoot 2 but then again it could just be bias since it was my first PlayStation game and have some memories of it. If there were, it was down to my rubbish reaction times in games. Always liked the stages in them, the graphics are still decent since there aren't many PS1 games that hold the visuals well (some games do look a bit glitchy but cartoony games aren't as aging as more realistic design) and the music is pretty good. Probably my favourite so far in terms of the games.

 

Last one that I've played was Wrath of Cortex that found it to be a decent game even though from reading comments online it seems to be the worst one? It seemed faithful towards the previous Crash platformers and liked the graphic design of the game. As for the loading times, they weren't bad (probably around the ball park of the era) but then again it could be because I've played on the PAL Xbox version instead of the original PS2 version where they did have bad loading times? The main problem that I did have with the game was the 2nd boss (the one with the water) and was lucky to beat it since it seems to be pixel perfect timing and found it really hard on a old TV, even worse on a modern TV where they have input lag. Found it pretty frustrating compared to most of the other bosses where they were easier.

 

From what I've read it took a year for Traveller's Tales to make this game after being impressed with a tech demo (that became the basis of one of the later stages) so they probably had to rush through developing the game while learning to program on the PS2 and the Xbox at the same time [the Gamecube version was done by someone else]. Then again, it did sell well enough to be on the Platinum/Classics/whatever budget range. Actually feel sorry for the developers for both this one and even more for Twinsanity since they had some really good ideas but had to rush through and get the game out of the door especially the latter where it was planned to be larger than it was.

 

Sadly can't remember much of Crash 3 apart from that I rented it once back in the day at a video store (that has now turned into a Greggs), probably it was the case of liking the game but couldn't afford it like a few PS1 games at the time such as Ape Escape.

 

My concern is depends if they do end up bringing Crash back whether it is Sony or Activision is if it ends up being a medicore or even a terrible game. Even then trying to think of which developers will do the game. Naughty Dog focuses more of games of a story telling/ movie feeling such as Last of Us and Uncharted plus I imagine that people who did work on the Crash games have been long gone so it might not be suitable for them. Unless Warner Bros. gets the rights, Traveller's Tales and TT Fusion are pretty much stuck making Lego games with a couple of off shoots (such as Spy Hunter) so they could get the open world mixed with classic gameplay element however lately their Lego games have been a bit unstable with the crashes and don't know if the staff are willing to make a Crash game since most of them have gone too apart from some senior staff. Don't know if Radical Entertainment are still around anymore... If there were a new Crash game, the only developers that I can think of that might have a chance are Sanzaru (Sony) since they did Sly Cooper faithfully, Beenox and whoever does Skylanders (Activision). Well there's Media Monocule however they focus on original platformers instead of existing IP, same thing for Studio Japan. It's hard to think of developers that have games that target towards the younger audience especially at a studio level and aren't Nintendo or Sega.

[StaticMania]

Twinsanity's development and sales suffered as a result of Wrath of Cortex's development and sales and that's bad.

[Person]

I kinda like Wrath of Cortex. It's not as good as the original 3, and doesn't really have the same feel either, but I enjoy it every now and again. The submarine levels were kinda...eh, and the Coco levels weren't anything special. It's not that great, but I can cut them some slack because they made it in just 12 months.

[CrashRatchetFan]

Twinsanity's development and sales suffered as a result of Wrath of Cortex's development and sales and that's bad.

Yeah but Nitro Kart was developed shortly after WOC and was given a year to be developed. Reviews were lukewarm at best but it sold incredibly well.

BTW, Charles Zembillas said that CNK was to be the last Crash game due to Universal being disappointed with WOC. After the sucess of CNK, Universal announced that two new Crash games were being made which were Twinsanity and CTTR.

[TheOcelot]

I much prefer Crash 2 over Crash 3.

 

It's not that Crash 3 is a bad game, it's just that it doesn't add - in terms of gameplay - anything particularly new or good to the formula. Yes there are the special moves you obtain after each boss fight and the inclusion of the time relics. However, the special powers don't make the gameplay better. The time relics are simply there to pad-out the game, and you don't even get an award for collecting all the platinum relics, some of which are viciously hard to obtain. There is no point in even going for the relics until you have obtained the fast speed-shoes after beating the boss in the fifth hub world. I found it easier to get the platinum relics in CTR. 

 

The 2d swimming levels really slow the pace of the game down and come across boring very quickly, as do the (Coco) jet-ski stages. There are four of them (one in the secret hub world) and their design is so linear. I like the motor-bike stages in Crash 3 and the 'riding tiger' stages with Coco are decent, if not quite as good as the 'polar' bear stages in Crash 2. 

 

The lack of normal levels (i.e. moving up or down screen) in Crash 3 compared to Crash 2 was disappointing.

 

Something else I don't like in Crash 3 is the placement of the five coloured gems. In Crash 2 you would obtain the grey gems by either collecting all the boxes or finding one in an alternative path. The five coloured gems, however, were extremely hard to get to, as they were hidden in some of the most unorthodox locations where you would never think to look for them:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhei0_rlvRI

 

Whereas in Crash 3 the coloured gems were just placed in alternatives paths like the gray gems. Oh, and three of the coloured gems in Crash 3 were on alternative paths in the Arabian themed levels. They could at least have hidden each coloured gem in a different themed level like they did in Crash 2. 

 

 

Crash 2 also has far better music. The controls in Crash 2 are nice and tight, whereas the controls in Crash 3 reverted to the slippery controls of Crash 1. Why did they do that?!!!

 

Crash 3 tried to play it safe by sticking to the excellent polished formula we got with Crash 2, like Spyro 3 tried to do by copying Spyro 2. Unfortunately Crash 3 comes across as rather dull. It has a decent story to be fair, but that's not saying much. Also, I found that Crash 3 would often freeze on my Playstation, a lot more compared to Crash 2.

[Jango]

Ok, a bit of fun: Josh Mancell, composer and one of the men behind Naughty Dog's Crash soundtrack has early versions of some Crash tunes uploaded on his soundcloud page. Check it out:

 

https://soundcloud.com/joshmancell/crash-bandicoot-2-rock-it

 

https://soundcloud.com/joshmancell/crash-bandicoot-2-sewer-or

 

https://soundcloud.com/joshmancell/crash-bandicoot-warped-under-1

 

There are more, you can check here: https://soundcloud.com/joshmancell

[Dejimon11]

Twinsanity's development and sales suffered as a result of Wrath of Cortex's development and sales and that's bad.

They even point that out twice in twinsanity. Anyways the only crash games I've played are crash 3 and crash nitro kart they were really fun. Kinda sucks that activision isn't doing anything with the IP at the moment

[Nintendoga]

Anybody ever play the GBA games, The Huge Adventure and N. Tranced? They were pretty fun. Also N Tranced has my favorite Warp Zone theme.

That shitty GBA Soundchip takes me back.

I still haven't played the PS1 Crash 1 or Crash 2, despite loving Crash 3 and Crash Bash. I also gave up the chance to buy Crash Team Racing in favor of Mario Kart: Super Circuit, which I still deeply horribly regret.

Fuck that Spyro & Crash crossover on the GBA tho. That was mad shitty.

[Tani Coyote]

Fuck that Spyro & Crash crossover on the GBA tho. That was mad shitty.

Between those and Playstation Move Heroes, I think we've determined that Naughty Dog and Insomniac do not mix.

That and companies don't seem to put much effort into crossovers usually.

I confess to having never tried any of the Crash GBA games... I've never been much of one for handheld.

[MegasonicZX]

I played that one spyro gba game once. It wasn't bad but it definitely wasn't as good as it could've been and N-tranced seemed more like a poor mans wrath of cortex instead of a new game.

[Guest]

So, over Crashy News, I shared some of the fans creations that has been recently published by them, over to let my readers enjoy some Crash goodness, but you guys can too :-)

Many fanarts from the fanbase!

An awesome crash cake!

Pic of the cake:

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Having now found out about their existence, I highly support the notion of Big Red Button Entertainment buying Crash Bandicoot or at least being allowed to develop new Crash games for whatever company hires them.

Having now found out about their existence, I highly support the notion of Big Red Button Entertainment buying Crash Bandicoot or at least being allowed to develop new Crash games for whatever company hires them.

[Tani Coyote]

At this point I think we'd all definitely want Sony devs (or ex-Sony) to work on a new Crash game, desiring the return to the classic touch that made him so great in the first place.

Really I'm amazed Activision just squats on this IP. It would cost them nothing, I think, given the game would be handled by someone else and they'd collect royalties. They would be doing the majority of the population's dream: sitting on their asses and getting paid for it.

I understand some may think Crash couldn't be relevant anymore but that just requires marketing to a new audience.

Don't think adults would pick it up too? Nonsense. A lot of My Little Pony's explosive appeal is precisely because it reminds a huge number of older people of the good times. If a Crash game is made that doesn't butcher the character designs or gameplay or display complete lack of competence on what a thylacine is, I think a lot of adults will succumb to that beautiful drug that is nostalgia and look into it.

[Guest]

Having now found out about their existence, I highly support the notion of Big Red Button Entertainment buying Crash Bandicoot or at least being allowed to develop new Crash games for whatever company hires them.

Having now found out about their existence, I highly support the notion of Big Red Button Entertainment buying Crash Bandicoot or at least being allowed to develop new Crash games for whatever company hires them.

I know for the fact that the canceled racing game, which turned later into a dreamswork racer was being developed by a ex-nd studio