Crash Bandicoot

Crash Bandicoot is a game that's fondly remembered as an innovator of the 3D platformer genre. Many have have gone so far as to tout it as a serious competitor to the likes of Super Mario 64 and other contemporary platformers by Nintendo. While it technically is in three dimensions, one has to wonder whether it was always supposed to be. It has some charm, but it fails to make the most of its innovations, instead coming off largely as a gimmick or an experiment.

The game indeed allows movement on three planes, but the action is incredibly linear, usually playing as a traditional sidescroller, somewhat reminiscent of the Donkey Kong Country trilogy in terms of action. For its time, moving in and out of the foreground was a novel concept, but as a function, it rarely proves useful. On the contrary, it frequently impedes the player as the plane simply isn't large enough to accommodate such a capability. Things only get worse when the game transitions to a camera angle positioned behind the player. In the sidescrolling segments, the timing of jumps is relatively intuitive, if imperfect compared to other entries in the genre. When the camera follows the player, any sense of coordination goes out the window, making for some incredibly frustrating segments of gaming. As I progressed through the game, I found myself relying increasingly more on dumb luck rather than my own abilities. On the whole, the game mechanics, just aren't that satisfying, but there are some quite decent level designs, that would provide an appropriate amount of challenge were it not for the gimmicky camera, and touchy controls.

For its time, the game looks outstanding and remains appealing today. The Crash character has a design that seems influenced by Sonic the Hedgehog. He is nothing if not cute, but there's a lot of personality in his design, evoking a lovable loser type, which is good since the storyline is almost non-existent. Otherwise, the game again takes its cues primarily from Donkey Kong Country, with lots of jungle and tribal settings, and a host of hostile critters and dangerous platforms and traps. There are also several boss characters that seem to have had just as much effort as our protagonist, one of the most inspired being a tommy-gun wielding mammal dressed in a pinstripe suit. The unique 3D perspective really helps to keep the visuals fresh, and I really can't find any major complaints, apart from the inevitable signs of age that come with decades of progress. The sound is adequate with a catchy main theme, but otherwise, largely forgettable music, and sound effects that tend to get annoying quickly.

In addition to some problems in the game mechanics, Crash also suffers from some lousy interface issues. This is one of the areas where the game's age shows the most. Saving the game is a needlessly difficult chore. The player must collect three tokens in a single stage in order to play a mini-game, which then must be completed in one attempt in order to save the game. Failure necessitates restarting the entire stage. Even once you've saved the game, however, you still must complete the stage that the save tokens were located. This proves to be a very cumbersome method that results in repeated playthroughs of levels unless the player attempts to complete the game in one sitting. Even for the game's era, this was a shoddy excuse for a save system, and it feels simply intolerable today.

It's easy to see how Crash Bandicoot became a popular title. Crash is a very nice mascot in a nice-looking game that seemed fresh after two generations of moving on only two planes, but despite being a pioneer, it simply doesn't do three dimensions all that well. I have to applaud the effort of Naughty Dog to attempt something so different from the norm, but the implementation here is just too frustrating, and it fails to make the most of the extra plane of movement. It's really not a bad game, and if you have a great deal of patience, you'll probably enjoy it, but with so many better and more accessible platformers, 2D and 3D alike, it's hard to recommend this as anything more than a curio. While Crash is an important and memorable touchstone in the history of video games, it is by no means a great game.