CRASH BANDICOOT: THE THREAD

I'll admit, I mostly avoided this series as a kid for some reason, but actually sort of wanted Warped when I first saw the ad for it. Probably should get them all on PSN some day...

Kind of a shame all the studios left their cartoony games behind. I miss when those were the big AAA games that were released, and they shared the spotlight with their M-Rated brethren. Now the latter are just about the only big-name games that get published with the likes of these as half-assed fodder meant only for kids who don't know better. And when someone does put in the effort, it just doesn't sell...

Well, there's been a swell of retro throwbacks for SNES/Genesis games, so hopefully the PSX/N64/Saturn era games will get their time in the spotlight eventually.

edited 27th Apr '12 9:38:37 PM by BetaRay

Hell yes. We really need to see more of the 3D action-plaformers that were so common in the PS1/N64 era.

The only one I can think of that isn't a Mario game is the 3DS version of that Skylanders Spyro game, which would really be an excellent game if it weren't for the blatant price gouging.

Oh, and the guys at Sucker Punch need to give Sly Cooper and inFamous a break and bring back this guy:

Not a mention of Twinsanity or Tag Team Racing save possibly the first post. 'Tis a shame—the latter's fun to play with others (or just to hear the cheesy puns by the cast), and I consider the former to have the best writing in the series.

I thought Twinsanity could have been an interesting direction on the series if so much wasn't cut. The humor was kinda funny, the level design was fresh, and it has the best acapella soundtrack ever made. Pity it feels half finished.

Tag Team Racing was a sign of things to come to me. The cast was Flanderized (Titans redesigned their looks, but this game messed up their personalities), the gameplay, while somewhat creative, felt lacking, and the humor was lame. Not the worst game I've played, but a disappointment.

Twinsanity could've been a damn good game if it was finished.*

I only ever got to play the demo.

For those of you who remember, it was on the same disk as Viewtiful Joe 2, which happened to wipe your memory card clean.

I think it was that disk.

I loved Twinsanity. I remember getting my mind blown to smithereens when playing the demo on some magazine disc.

It was called Crash Bandicoot Unlimited then.

Twinsanity's pretty decent, but it could have and should have been so much more. Tag Team Racing is probably my second favorite Crash Racer, behind CTR. It beats Nitro Kart by simple virtue of attempting to be its own thing instead of trying to be CTR with shinier paint. But the game is very much Crash Bandicoot in name only. Crash of the Titans gets that criticism a lot, but it really isn't. A lot of stuff is different, but the general feel of the levels is very much Crash Bandicoot, which I can't say for Tag Team Racing.

edited 8th May '12 4:17:26 PM by CTM

Oi... Spyro Skylander adventures isn't bad, the game is actually pretty good. It's just the Merchandise Driven AR mechanic that gets one's goat.

Anyway... I have little memories of this Franchise. But I can remember that the memories I HAVE of the PS 1 Trilogy were very, very good.

That, and I played Crash Bash, alot.

edited 8th May '12 4:24:26 PM by PippingFool

The first three games, CTR and crash bash were awesome.

In fact, I really miss crash bash. I can't find anything that is remotely close to a modern equivalent.

I have decided that no other game on the franchise has ever existed. Hey, I actually played Crash of Titans and it was ok. But recently, I played the N.Sanity level in Mushroom Kingdom Fusion, and it reminded me of all the things that made the first crash awesome and got forgotten horribly. So, really, last crash platform game = Crash 3 Warped in my personal fanon.

So, does anyone have any expectations of Crystal's Wrath so far? It is a fangame, but it's probably the closest to an official game we'll have in a while... I'm hoping in a naive fashion that this'll somehow cause an official Crash game to be made.

The Wrath of Cortex was the first Crash game I played. The other two games I played were Nitro Kart and Tag Team Racing (I consider the latter to be one of my favourite racing games

I didn't play the recent games. I just couldn't find them (or I just lost interest in the series). Still, it's a rather enjoyable series.

I've played the original Naughty Dog trilogy, the original nitro cart, crash bash, wrath of cortex, and tag team racing. Never got Twinsanity to work though.I'm a big fan of the original trilogy and found wrath of cortex enjoyable. I also played the Huge Adventure and N.Tranced and enjoyed them, though they were very much like the original series in terms of writing and feel. Never cared much for the racing and party games though.

Anyway, there was something interesting in my ramblings I wanted to post. There are rumors that the series might be revived. At least according to the wikipedia article, Naughty Dog has expressed interest in reviving the series if they get a chance, and I know the original creators of Crash want to reboot the franchise. So there might be something interesting coming up ahead.

edited 18th Nov '14 10:17:52 AM by Sir.Orc

I wish. So I will remain neutral but optimistic until something solid comes about.

Say they do reboot the franchise, what would you want to see come out of it?

Hard to say. I would like to see a more fleshed story and world building based on the original Naughty Dog stuff, especially the original characterizations. I didn't care for how Radical Entertainment handled them at all.

edited 18th Nov '14 10:18:08 AM by Sir.Orc

Well the new characterisation isn't all bad. But they made Crunch Mr. T, so I wholeheartedly agree.

Well, I would like it to keep the tone of the classics, at the least. And actually properly introduce Coco. And add that style of humour in Twinsanity.

Yeah I liked a lot of the ideas they presented in Twinsanity especially with the writing (although I'm not a fan of acapella).

The last one I played was Crash of the Titans. It was alright, but not really Crash Bandicoot, y'know? I still have the first three plus CTR on my PSP and PS 3.

I played the original Crash trilogy, Crash of the Titans and Mind Over Mutant. Frankly I'm fond of the franchise even in Mind Over Mutant and Crash of the Titans, mostly due the spirited voice-acting and humour the games had.

I enjoy some of the new personalities as well, like N. Brio being a Cloud Cuckoo Lander who insists he invented everything.

In the Naughty Dog games at least, he did, it's stated in the manual for the first game that he was the inventor of the Evolvo-ray and Cortex merely took credit for it. The cortex-vortex (the thing that was supposed to brainwash crash and malfunctioned) was made by Cortex, but everything that actually worked was made by Brio.

regarding the Radical Entertainment games, I suppose my issues stem from how jarring the characterizations were compared to the originals, especially for Tiny and N. Gin. I really hated the new Tiny

I'd like the new Tiny as a separate character who's not related to the other Tiny.

You know, this makes me think it'd be cool to see, if the franchise is rebooted a Crisis Crossover sort of scenario with both the Radical Entertainement-era cast and characterization interacting with the Naughty Dog-era cast and characterization.

Some big new information here. The original Crash Bandicoot was going to have opening and closing cartoons, which were uploaded to Youtube recently by one of the people involved with them, David Siller. Here they are.

Apparently, if the game was a success, these cartoons would have been the basis for a tv series. Sony said no to putting them in the game because they were pushing 3d at the time, but I don't know why nothing came of the tv series plans. The games were certainly successful enough to justify it. I will say however, that my childhood feels ripped off that this was not a part of it.

Some other things worth noting:

• The singer sounds like he may be Jim Cummings.
• Tiny and the Komodo Brothers are among the villains. This is because they were planned for the first game, but ended up being held back until the second.
• Siller cites Animaniacs as an influence for what the cartoon was aiming for. I personally get Taz Mania and Freakazoid vibes from it as well.

edited 29th Jul '15 1:30:19 PM by GavsEvans123

…Did Cortex's ship explode with Crash and the girl on it at the end? ò.Ô

Also, this cartoon would have caused copyright issues in France, as "Cortex" is the name of The Brain over here.

But the games sure have a cartoony atmosphere, so this wouldn't have been too out-of-place… not sure how Crash would have worked as a character, though…

edited 29th Jul '15 4:08:51 PM by Lyendith

That cartoon is giving me serious Saturday morning cartoon vibes. Seems like a waste that the idea was ditched.

I take that was the ending you get if you don't 100% the game judging by the question mark.

Crash would probably be a silent dumb Screwy Squirrel esque character.