Crash Bandicoot

Crash Bandicoot is about a slighty mutated bandicoot who was a test experiment far up in Neo Cortex's (mad scientist) castle. Cortex wanted Crash to become evil and join him in his quest for world domination. However, Cortex's latest machine failed on Crash, and luckily for Crash, he made a great escape out one of the castle's windows. He washes up on an island far far away and decides it's time for revenge.Looks like Crash needs to traverse 3 islands to get up to Cortex though!


In many of the levels, you'll run down a single linear pathway smashing up crates, jumping over chasm after chasm, and fighting a unique cast of strange enemies. Most of these enemies you can simply spin into (that's Crash's way of attacking), or bop on the head. (like millions of classic platform games) Each level is filled with tricky jumps and easily fallen into chasms. Some of these platforming leaps are very tough to make, (especially in side scrolling levels) and you'll most likely die millions of times until you finally figure out what went wrong. Not only (in some levels) is this repettitive, but very frustarating. Experienced platform fans might get the tricks down but casual gamers will want to look away. You'll meet up with millions of different platforms, falling platforms,moving platforms, and even platforms that light on fire. It's not easy, for example, you might find a platform that gets caught on fire for a few seconds, but right after that a herd of enemies come through to kill you if you try making a leap onto the platform. It's definetly challenging in jumping situations.


Another bad thing are the gems you'll need to collect to get full percentage on the game. You must break all of the crates in the majority of the levels,sounds easy, right? NOT! You CAN NOT die during any of the crate smashing madness or else you can't get the gem after completing the level, just think of it, you MUST NOT DIE on a gem collecting spree, and sometimes levels have a tough set of platform tricks that take loads of brainpower to make across. And if you fall off, you've gotta reset the level. REPETTITIVE!

Another hated thing about the game is it's poor save system. In some levels,NOT ALL OF THEM, there are these cards you'll need to grab that are hidden in some of the crates, collect all three of them to get to a secret bonus round that is a side scrolling type. And at the end, you get your saving chance. BUT if you die or fall off into a pit during the bonus rounds............. YOU'VE JUST MESSED UP YOUR CHANCE TO SAVE! This is frustarating since you'll need to get past about three more levels JUST TO SAVE! Naughty Dog, I KNOW you could've done better than this!


But, not all of the game is bad, every once in a while you'll get to play in a side scrolling levels, like ones seen on old systems like the Nintendo and Sega. These levels are usually fun,not to mention they're a decent challenge. And even most of the other usual levels are fun. Just a few of em' are stinkers. I almost forget something, those fun boss fights! Some of the boss levels are incredibly fun. Like in one, you'll have to take on an animal gangster that tries shooting you with his shotgun. There's a lot of things to say about this game, fun boss fights, many fun levels,but a bad save system and bad gem collecting system. But in overall experience, the gameplay has just a few more good things than bad.


Crash's controls are fairly ok. But I just hate that you have to use the D-Pad to control Crash(you can't use an analog stick), it just makes your fingers hurt after extended playtime. Other than moving Crash with the D-Pad, everything else about the controls are good, Crash responses fully to the commands you tell him to make.But you'll eventually get used to the D-Pad after a few levels.


The overall graphics in the game are pretty average. Not many of the characters are full of details. But everything is full of colors,which is a good thing most platformers have in common. Crash and the gang look fairly good,especially for 1996 when this game was made. Some of the backgrounds and enemies just look like a complete mess of polygons. The backgrounds in the Jungle area are ugly and hard to make out most of the time. I give this area 1 thumb up. But that's definetly not bad.

The music is very good, there are millions of different tunes in most levels, they aren't too catchy but they're good. I especially liked the wild and rough music that goes on during Crash's ride with a hog! The sounds are good too, they're just like the game's sequals, they're your regular platforming sounds. But they're still good!


Crash Bandicoot is one of those games you either love or hate, but I just like it. While the sequals did improve more on the spice of this game, the original game is certainetly a good start on what comes out to be a good series. It could've done better but it's still a good game.

*Fun levels
*Good music
*Fun boss battles
- Bad save system
-Bad gem system
- Some enemies seem to look like a mess of polygons

Overall Rating: 6.9/10 (Fairly good)