Crash Bandicoot series

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

Crash Bandicoot is a popular series of video games. It was originally a straightforward platformer for the PlayStation, and has since expanded to the Game Boy Advance, GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox with various spin-off games in different genres.

[edit] Crash

Main article: Crash Bandicoot (character)

Crash is a Perameles gunnii, of the order polyprotodonta, family Peramelidae, commonly known as the Eastern Barred Bandicoot. The Eastern Barred Bandicoot is a marsupial, which means that the females of the species have a pouch for carrying young. They live in Tasmania, a small island south off the Australian mainland, as well as on the mainland itself. The Parameles gunnii is, on average, 320mm from head to rump, and has a 80mm tail. Crash's family, on the other hand, tend to be about a meter tall, orange, walk on their hind legs, don't have tails, wear clothes, and wear big shoes.

[edit] Gameplay

The original Crash Bandicoot.
Enlarge
The original Crash Bandicoot.

The first three Crash games, as well as several subsequent Crash games were platform games. There are Aku Aku copy masks sparsely scattered throughout the levels. Collecting an Aku Aku mask while Crash already has one turns the one he has gold. Collecting another mask while Crash has a gold one grants Crash limited-time invincibility, after which the mask reverts to being gold. Getting hit will reduce the mask from gold to normal or from normal to nothing. If Crash gets hit when he does not have a mask, he will meet his end in a sometimes comical animation.

In some of the Crash platformers, not including the original, some levels have a skull platform. Stepping on it brings Crash to what many consider a difficult part of the level. To be able to use the platform, Crash must not have died before reaching it. The benefit to stepping on a skull platform is the acquisition of special game items called gems.

Main collectables include 'Wumpa Fruit', healthy forest fruit grown from Wumpa Trees in which adds an additional life to Crash and company when 100 are obtained. Other, more valuable goodies include Gems (rare jewels often discovered by smashing open every crate in a level or on an alternate path) and Crystals - the most common found jewel in which one appears per every level, often contributing to the main story at hand. The only other collectables to note are Time Relics, featured from Crash Bandicoot: Warped and most other Crash games after (collected by racing a level's time trial) and trophies, which are featured in Crash Team Racing, Crash Nitro Kart and Crash Bash.

Obstacles in Crash's path include animal-like creatures and other badguys; Dr. Neo Cortex's henchmen, dressed in labcoats; various machinery; and physical barriers. To surmount these, Crash can use his jump move and his spin attack. In Crash platformers after the first, he can also do a body slam, slide, duck, crawl, and perform an extra-high jump by sliding or ducking and then jumping. Starting with Crash Bandicoot: Warped, Crash can also collect a special move after defeating each boss.

Most of the Crash Bandicoot series each contain around 25 levels of gameplay, each level becoming higher difficulty, most times requiring special moves obtained from defeating bosses, this fact not referring to the original Crash Bandicoot. This does not include the hidden levels, where bonus items can be obtained.

Crash Twinsanity is one of the newest Crash Bandicoot games.
Enlarge
Crash Twinsanity is one of the newest Crash Bandicoot games.

[edit] Crates

There are crates scattered throughout the levels. Most crates contain some bonus. Some have wumpa fruits in them, and collecting 100 of the game's "Wumpa fruits" gives the player an extra life. Others have Aku Aku masks or extra lives.

The player can get one gem per level by breaking all of the crates in one level. Most gems are white, but some are colored. In the original Crash Bandicoot, but in none of its sequels, some gems acquired by breaking all of a level's boxes are colored. The remaining white and colored gems must be collected by finding and touching them. They are invariably positioned in an area that is difficult to reach. These colored Gems in the later Crash games, asides Twinsanity, are often obtained via completing the Skull paths (mentioned earlier) or particularly harder, secret routes.

In addition to crates that provide bonuses, there are also TNT crates. If Crash attacks one, he loses a life. If he jumps on one, a short countdown is started, after which the TNT crate explodes. Some TNT crates are useful to clear obstacles. Some crates have on them an arrow pointing upwards. Landing on one will spring Crash into the air, much like a trampoline does.

With the exception of the original, there are Nitro crates in all Crash platformers. If Crash touches one, he loses a life. Attacking a metal, green crate with an exclamation mark on it destroys all of a level's Nitro crates.

Also present in all Crash platformers except for the original are normal crates that are protected by a metal gridlock surrounding their edges normally destroyed by using the body slam move.

Beginning with the third Crash game, Crash Bandicoot: Warped, some crates are shifting crates, also known as 'slot crates'. They shift among different kinds of crates. The rate at which a shifting crate changes gradually increases, until finally the crate becomes metallic and indestructible.

Also present in the newer Crash Bandicoot games, there are Time Trial crates, which can only be found on levels when in Time Trial mode. Breaking any of these crates will stop the watch that counts your time to complete the level. Depending on the number on the crate, the watch will stop for an amount of time until continuing counting.

Crystals and gems are two special items needed to beat most Crash games.

[edit] Mascot

Crash Bandicoot 2.
Enlarge
Crash Bandicoot 2.

The original Crash Bandicoot was one of the earliest 3D platformers and was a major seller. Sony unofficially made Crash the mascot for the PlayStation.

Crash is often compared to Mario, as both of them were mascots of their respective consoles. Both the original Crash Bandicoot and Super Mario 64 were early 3D platformers. After the first three Crash games, much like Mario before him, Crash branched out, starring in a racing game, analogous to Super Mario Kart, and a party game, analogous to Mario Party. All of this contributed to the perception that Crash is Sony's equivalent of Mario. However, with the release of Crash games on other platforms, this is no longer the case. Despite now being a third-party franchise, some still believe Crash to be the equivalent of Mario.

Crash was also influential in reviving the character archetype of an anthropomorphic animal starring in a platform game. This practice was pioneered by Sonic the Hedgehog a few years earlier and achieved improved popularity during and after the Crash era with characters such as Blinx, Sly Cooper, and Spyro the Dragon. However, it should be noted that animal mascots littered the 16-bit era with such characters as Bubsy the Bobcat, Aero the Acrobat, Awesome Possum, Mr. Nutz, and others. The impact of Crash on future animal mascot games is debatable. In recent years, some say that Crash's popularity has quite literally "crashed". However, with the success of Crash Twinsanity, this has proven to be false as Crash still has a loyal fanbase.

[edit] Developers

"Crash Development Cycle" Marketing Piece (Crash Bandicoot: Warped).
Enlarge
"Crash Development Cycle" Marketing Piece (Crash Bandicoot: Warped).

The first four Crash Bandicoot games were developed by Naughty Dog. Crash Bash was developed by Eurocom. Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex and Crash Twinsanity were developed by Traveller's Tales and the division Traveller's Tales Oxford. Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure (Crash Bandicoot XS in Europe), Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced, Crash Nitro Kart and Crash Bandicoot Purple (Crash Bandicoot Fusion in Europe) have all been developed by Vicarious Visions.Crash Tag Team Racing was developed by Radical Entertainment and the recent Crash Boom Bang was developed by Dimps. The first 4 Crash titles were published by Sony as well as the first 3 games being joint published with Universal Interactive Studios. All of the other Crash titles were published by Universal Interactive Studios (now known as Vivendi Games). Crash Team Racing also never mentions Universal in its opening intro, leading to some debate on the matter.

The first four Bandicoot games were exclusives to the Sony PlayStation. After Sony and Naughty Dog reached an agreement to sell the license to the publisher Vivendi Games, multiple developers have worked with the property and games have been released for Nintendo and Microsoft consoles, in addition to Sony.

A great deal of fans and critics consider the Naughty Dog games the best of the series. The games that have not been made by Naughty Dog have not received nearly as much critical hype, (such attention would be diverted to Naughty Dog's next series, Jak and Daxter).

Though some of the Vicarious Visions titles have not fared critically as well as the Naughty Dog games, they have still received gratitude for keeping the series true to its original platforming roots. In an almost opposite twist, there are also fans who praise the work of Traveller's Tales Oxford for their work in Crash Twinsanity, which was the first platformer in the series to drive away from the "Warp Room" interface of the original series and simultaneously reimagine certain story details.

[edit] Installments

[edit] Naughty Dog era

[edit] Eurocom/Traveller's Tales/Vicarious Visions era

[edit] Radical Entertainment/Dimps era

[edit] Crash in pop culture

In The Simpsons episode "Lisa Gets an "A"", Dash Dingo is an obvious spoof of Crash Bandicoot. The villain in the game projects himself as a hologram in a circular room before Dash, which is a parody on Crash 2's warp room holograms. A tweaked-out soundtrack is used, sounding uncannily similar to the games.

In the Angel episode "Power Play", Illyria and Drogyn are seen playing Crash Bandicoot on an Xbox. Unable to quite get the hang of it Illyria remarks, "I play this game. It is pointless, and annoys me. Yet I am compelled to keep playing."

In the Friends episode, "The One With Monica's Thunder", Joey is preparing to audition for the part of a nineteen year old. As he greets Chandler in his "teenage" attire, Chandler can be seen playing Crash Team Racing.

In the movie Baby Geniuses, Crash can be seen in a clothing shop in a game screen.

In Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, news anchor Tom Tucker looks like he is masturbating because of the camera angle, making panting and groaning sounds, but then it is revealed he is playing a Crash Bandicoot game for an early Game Boy system (although Crash games for Game Boy so far have only been on the Game Boy Advance) and says, "Eat my dust Crash Bandicoot!"

In the Dawson's Creek episode "Four to Tango", Dawson unexpectedly finds Pacey in his room in the middle of the schoolday. Pacey's excuse is that he's playing Crash.

On an episode of "Yes, Dear", at the beginning of an episode Jimmy is playing Crash Bandicoot on the PlayStation.

Crash Bandicoot has also been referenced in a few Jhonen Vasquez comics, mainly on people's shirts in the comics.

In the Nintendo 64 game Goldeneye 007, in the Aztec level one of the wall engravings appears to have Crash Bandicoot chained to some torture device.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Official websites (in gaming order)
Fansites (in alphabetical order)
Fanlistings (in alphabetical order)
Creative Sites (in alphabetical order)
General resources
Chat Rooms


v • d • e
Crash Bandicoot video games
Crash Bandicoot • Cortex Strikes Back • Warped

The Wrath of Cortex • Twinsanity

The Huge Adventure • N-Tranced • Purple

Team Racing • Nitro Kart Console/Handheld • Tag Team Racing

Bash • Boom Bang!
 
Good Guys Crash | Tawna | Aku | Coco | Polar | Pura | Rex | Trophy Girls | Crunch | Pasadena | Penta | Fake Crash | Ernest | Chick | Stew | Von Clutch | Park Drones |
Neutral Brio | Papu | Velo | Krunk | Nash | Norm | Geary |Viscount
Uka Uka and His Villains Cortex | Ripper Roo | Kong | Pinstripe | N. Gin | Komodo Bros. | Tiny | Uka | Tropy | Dingodile | Rilla Roo | Elementals | Trance | Nina | Rusty
Other Villains Oxide | Evil Crash | Amberly | Tikimon | Zam | Zem | Evil Twins | Bearminator | Ripto | Willie
Enemies Tribesmen | Lab Assistants | Piranha Plants | Ants
Items Crystals | Gems | Wumpa Fruit | Relics | Gem Shards
Areas N. Sanity Island | Cortex Castle
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../c/r/a/Crash_Bandicoot_series_58a2.html"