Crash Twinsanity

Added October 26th, 2004 by Dakota Grabowski

Introduction:

In early September 1996, a mysterious new mascot appeared on the scene. His name would be Crash Bandicoot and under the Sony label. Crash’s destiny was to challenge Mario and prove that there is room for two large mascots. Mario ultimately would have his chance to defend his throne of top platforming mascot as he appeared in his brand new Mario 64 game for the Nintendo 64. Crash though caught on quickly with fans but not largely enough to supplant Mario as the king of platformers as Mario reigned supreme that year with everybody ranting and raving about Mario 64. Crash’s impact would leave a mark on the industry for years to come as they proved with Crash that other mascots could survive for a short while to compete with Nintendo’s beloved Mario.

Crash Bandicoot spawned several games with him being the lead attraction since 1996. His popularity would thrive with the successful sequel ‘Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back.’ Many thought that the original developers (Naughty Dog) and Sony wouldn’t be able to dish out the same quality Crash games after the sequel but they proved the media wrong with the third and probably the best in the series, Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped. This would be the last game Sony would put out for the Crash series around the platforming genre. Sony published one other Crash title but it would be in the same essence that Mario Kart was. Sony took all the Crash Bandicoot characters and put them into a racer titled ‘Crash Team Racing’. The reviews on the racer were all positive but this would be the ultimate end of Sony’s involvement with the Crash series as they only put out one more title that people started to label Crash as a copy cat as the last title, ‘Crash Bash’ wasn’t too well recepted. Vivendi Universal would soon acquire the rights to Crash Bandicoot and gave the license to Traveller’s Tales to handle.

Traveller’s Tales has since handled two Crash projects with the current generation of consoles. They created Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex to mixed reviews for every console and just recently released Crash Twinsanity. Wrath of Cortex generally didn’t go over well with it not expanding level design or story wise at all. Would Traveller’s Tales put more time into level design with Crash Twinsanity and have it become a brilliant second outing for the team? To a degree, Traveller’s Tales has given the series some new found spunk to make it interesting all over again.

Gameplay:

Crash Twinsanity once again pits you up against Dr. Cortex. Wait that would be too predictable but you are only pitted up against Dr. Cortex for a couple minutes and the story actually then branches off for the first time I have seen in a long time. This time around Cortex & Crash aren’t butting heads for too long as right after the first boss battle, Cortex & Crash are forced to join together to form a humorous tag-team to fight off the new evil. Wait we have seen this before, Mario and Bowser now often team up to fight a greater evil through a few games. So in reality this isn’t something entirely new but for Crash, but it’s a hopeful revitalization of a franchise that was going to be down for the count if they didn’t get their act together.

Traveller’s Tales did a remarkable job but it still falls a little short of what is expected from a Crash Bandicoot title. The gameplay remains similar to Wrath of Cortex as you’ll be double jumping, spin attacking and ground slamming your way through the levels. What they have added to the gameplay is the ability to use Cortex to throw into boxes, throwing him across the levels to hit switches, and other various humorous actions to try and broaden the gameplay. This scenario has been used before as Eidos’ played it out with their platformer Whiplash. Cortex simply becomes Crash’s rag doll to whip around but to tell you the truth, the gameplay couldn’t have been served a better feature then what they added. Crash is molded around fun that lasts through the whole game and Crash Twinsanity delivers a whole new aspect to what Crash used to be and where he is now.

Crash Twinsanity has some break-off moments to split the out of the ordinary duo of Crash and Cortex. This gives the game a fresh breath away from the break everything in site and destroy what’s in front of your path style. Add in the free-roaming factors and now Crash finally receives the freedom he always deserved. You can roam the islands to collect fruit, tiki masks and find hidden areas. This freedom was never experienced as before Crash was a talking and talking linear game that was fully 3D.
Graphics:

With Traveller’s Tales focusing more on the gameplay this time around, I wasn’t expecting nothing too drastic of a difference with graphics. Crash still resembles what he used to almost eight to ten years ago and that’s a shame. Traveller’s Tales should put more emphasis on the graphics and making them into what is expected with next-gen platformers. The “jaggies” are back to make the players furious about the lack of depth in their details. Cinematic scenes seem to use the in-game engine and they are done to create laughter but the pain of seeing Crash not take the next step graphically is a small let down. They did put a little more effort with giving the characters more emotions to express as they have better facial animations. Twinsanity may be the best looking entry in the series but it’s not leaps and bounds ahead of the previous installments. What I wish they would have installed with this game was the ability to skip past the cinematic scenes. If that was just implemented, it would have fixed one problem instantly instead of having to wait until the next game.

Audio:

In the past, Crash never really gave the players a reason to turn up the music and listen to the dialogue. This time around though for what Traveller’s Tales forgot to spruce up in the graphics division, they put towards the audio department. The soundtrack may not be the best but it is favorably appealing. The dialogue is the best out of all the Crash games. If I had to pick up this game for one reason, it would be just to listen to the dialogue and fill myself in with Cortex and Crash’s fish out of the water situations. The voice acting allows the players to perceive the sarcasm and satire within the voices. With the voices not being over the top with trying to be serious, it provides a relief in which the players can relax and enjoy the game then actually becoming too frustrated with bad acting. Sound effects are on par with the rest of the series but they could have added in more music to play through the levels and a variety of more diversified sound effects.

Controls:

What could ruin this game for first time players that never have picked up the Crash games is that camera just doesn’t want to agree with the player. It will sometimes readjust itself to make you miss a long jump that will frustrate the player. Also you control the camera instead of the character. You move to the right, the camera swings to the left behind the character. It’s not really complicated but the game just doesn’t allow the character movement to be full of grace like many other platformers have with their leading their main characters. Controlling the movement of Crash hasn’t been this awkward in a long time and it kind of felt like Crash was out of place this time around.

Character controls:

(Crash)
Left Thumbstick: Walk/Run
X Button: Spin
A Button: Jump (tap twice for double jump)
B Button: Crouching (B button with left thumbstick for crawling)
A + B Buttons: Body Slam
A + X Buttons: Jump Spin
Left Thumbstick + B Button: Knee Slide
Left Thumbstick + A & B Buttons: Slide Jump

(Cortex)
Left Thumbstick: Walk/Run
X Button: Fire (hold X to charge up a blast)
A Button: Jump
B Button: Crouching (B Button with left thumbstick for crawling)
A + B Buttons: Radial Blast
Left Thumbstick + B Button: Body Slide
Left Trigger or Right Trigger: Strafe Move

(Crash & Cortex together)
Left Thumbstick: Walk/Run
X Button: Spin
A Button: Jump
B Button: Slam
A + B Buttons: Twin Throw
X + B Buttons: Twin Spin

Replay:

Your quest through Crash is longer then you may actually believe it to be. It may actually take you about 12-15 hours to complete the quest which is longer then what I first had thought. Though when you finish it, the fun factor drops immediately as you won’t want to insert it back in your Xbox unless it was to show a friend a situation that Cortex and Crash get into that was entertaining. They could have added more playable characters to spice of the storyline but only allowing four characters limits what they could have done with the game. What is lacking is multi-player or any Xbox live download and capabilities. Downloads would have been enjoyable as it could have added to the humor and to bring the players back to see what the developers were offering with the odd couple of Cortex and Crash pairing up. What Twinsanity does offer is a whole slew of unlockables and believe me when I say this, there is a lot of interesting stuff to unlock.

Summary:

With the old writer of ‘Ren & Stimpy’, Jordan Reichek, Crash Twinsanity could possibly the most hilarious Crash Bandicoot adventure. Though it seems like Crash Twinsanity plays out more of a Saturday cartoon rather then what Crash would regularly involve himself in. Crash plays out to both audiences with both adult and child like humor, so it will be loved by various age groups. It’s also nice to see Cortex taking out his anger on Crash with brutalizing him like he should have in the first game. Long time Crash enthusiasts will find themselves enjoying Crash Twinsanity while some others may find that it is an embarrassment once again as it may seem like they stole ideas and put them into a Crash game. I find that Crash Twinsanity is a lovely addition to any Xbox collection as it offers witty dialogue that even inserts jabs at itself. Any developers that can mock and joke about their previous work (the pitiful Wrath of Cortex) will always receive an A in my book. Crash Twinsanity served its purpose for me and that’s to give me a reliever from all the serious games that involve too much action and not enough humor.