Crash Bandicoot (character)
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| Crash Bandicoot | |
|---|---|
 Crash in Crash Bandicoot 2. |
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| Game series | Crash Bandicoot |
| First game | Crash Bandicoot |
| Creator(s) | Charles Zembillas, Joe Pearson |
| Voice actor(s) (English) | Brendan O'Brien Steven Jay Blum (2003) Jess Harnell (2005) |
| Voice actor(s) (Japanese) | Kappei Yamaguchi Makoto Ishii (2006) |
Crash Bandicoot, or simply Crash, is the fictional protagonist of Naughty Dog's Crash Bandicoot series created by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin. Next to Jak and Daxter, Crash Bandicoot is Naughty Dog's signature franchise, having sold over 34 million copies worldwide.[1]
In the games, Crash is described as a genetically-advanced Eastern Barred Bandicoot whose quiet life on N. Sanity Island (an island located southeast of Australia) is frequently interrupted by his nemesis Doctor Neo Cortex, and must defeat him to put his life back in order. He is often accompanied by allies such as Aku Aku, Coco Bandicoot, and Crunch Bandicoot.
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[edit] Conception and creation
[edit] Creation
Crash (prototype name, Willy the Wombat) was created by Naughty Dog intentionally as a character unique to the current design of the 3-D genre, being able to portray multiple emotions merely by facial expression, (a feature rare then due to basic technology in games). The choice of an obscure, commonly unknown animal was commonplace in the platforming industry at the time. Crash's final design (created by cartoonist and Spyro the Dragon designer Charles Zembillas) seems to be largely based on traditional Western animation (suiting his American origin and target audience) such as Looney Tunes, indeed much early concept work (and even vague elements of his final design) resembles characters such as the Tasmanian Devil and Wile E. Coyote.
[edit] Voice actors
Since his debut, Crash has had a grand total of five voice actors: Brendan O'Brien in the Naughty Dog games, Steven Blum in Crash Nitro Kart, Jess Harnell in Crash Tag Team Racing, Kappei Yamaguchi in the Japanese dub of the games, and Makoto Ishii in Crash Boom Bang!. With a few exceptions, Crash himself does not talk in his early games for the PlayStation. This is in fact common with video games as to allow the audience to play through the perspective of the character, (noticeably, Coco Bandicoot was mute in Crash Bandicoot: Warped). When he does, he speaks in a somewhat high pitched garble, though some of his comments are very obvious. Although it is proven in Crash Tag Team Racing that Crash speaks (albeit by jibbering), his speaking lines are usually short and rare interjections rather than actual conversations. An early CGI commercial for Crash Bandicoot 2 does in fact show Crash speaking fluent English. Interestingly he is given a completely different voice, as well as an Australian accent. This advert is somewhat infamous to the fan community and is not considered canon.
[edit] Characteristics
Naughty Dog once referenced the development of Crash as a character both 'goofy yet heroic', and being able to portray it well. Originally however, he took the role of a silent protagonist and thus expressed little of his personality or opinions (a trait developer Jason Rubin later claimed to regret), though in more recent games he has played a larger role.
Crash's personality is hard to pinpoint, sometimes varying from game to game. Overall, he has a rather wacky, cartoonish personality, in simple terms, he is a literal tornado. His demented behavior was in fact extended to actual sadism/masochism in Crash Tag Team Racing, in which he took pleasure in torturing innocent animals, park drones, and even himself (it should be noted that CTTR is criticised for its over-caricaturisation or even complete change in character personalities). Despite this however, Crash is usually kind-hearted and laid back, rarely ever showing true sorrow or anger (though he detests evil, such as Cortex), though he is also rather simple, to some fans almost to the point of retardedness and lack of awareness.
[edit] Abilities
Crash's most common ability is his tornado spin, upon which he twirls insanely to hit a nearby opponent. The power of this attack varies in different games, to the point he can spin constantly or even float on air when using it, however these advancements generally come as power ups in most games often gained by defeating a boss character. He can also spin objects, living or not, to gain a better hit radius. Like other platformers, he can also jump on opponents as well as slide and body slam. Some of these also gain power ups depending upon the game. A large amount of special abilities can be obtained in various titles. Crash can also ride a whole range of vehicles without ever obtaining his driving license, such as motorcycles, bi-planes, wave-boards, 4X4 jeeps, karts and a whole range of other cars. In a common tradition to the platform genre, he can also be seen riding a minecart at times.
In Crash Bandicoot, Crash can only jump and spin. In Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, not only can he spin and jump, but can also slide, crawl, dig underground and body slam. In Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, he can perform the previous abilities as well as an upgraded body slam, double jump, super-fast tornado spin, Crash Dash (being able to sprint) and the best of them all-the fruit bazooka! In Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath Of Cortex, Crash is also seen to be able to tip-toe.
[edit] Appearances
Crash being the title character of the series, has appeared prominently in every game as the protagonist and a playable character, though it is unknown if he would play a part in the as-of-currently unreleased spin-off, Cortex Chaos.
[edit] 1996-1999
Crash debuted with the August 31, 1996 release of the video game Crash Bandicoot in North America. Described as an ordinary bandicoot who was mutated by Doctor Neo Cortex and subsequently rejected as the general of his Cortex Commandos, Crash assumes the role of the generic hero attempting to rescue the damsel-in-distress Tawna (and N. Sanity Island) from the evil scientist, who aims for world domination.
In Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, Crash sleeps soundly until his sister awakes him and commands him to deliver a new laptop battery. Halfway through his trip, he is abducted by Doctor Cortex, who tells him that they need 25 Power Crystals to save the world from the devastation of the upcoming planetary alignment. It is up to Crash to obey the reformed Doctor Cortex's orders and gather the Crystals. All the while, Coco is learning of Cortex's true intentions, which involve a space station and a new Cortex Vortex, and Doctor Nitrus Brio is attempting to stop Crash from gathering Crystals with his own army of superanimals.
In Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, immediately after Cortex Strikes Back, Cortex's ruined space station plummets to the Earth and crash-lands into a large monument in the middle of the jungle, releasing an evil entity known as Uka Uka. Many eons ago, Aku Aku, Uka Uka's twin brother, locked him there to prevent the world from his malice. With his newfound freedom, Uka Uka teams up with Doctor Cortex and Doctor Nefarious Tropy to gather the Crystals in their original places in time. Crash and his friends then begin a journey to use N. Tropy's Time Twisting Machine and collect the Power Crystals before the villains do so.
In Crash Team Racing, which somewhat follows Warped, Crash and his friends prepare to enter a kart-racing tournament being held. However, this attracts the attention of Nitros Oxide, who challenges the fastest driver on Earth to a race. If he loses, he leaves Earth in peace. If he wins, he turns the whole planet into a concrete parking lot.
[edit] 2000-2007
In Crash Bash, Crash's sleep is interrupted by Aku Aku, who has summoned him to take part in a battle of good and evil, alongside Coco, Tiny, and Dingodile, the aforementioned battle being a series of minigames.
Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex takes place years after the events of Warped. Crash decides to take a break at N. Sanity Beach. Little do the Bandicoots know that Doctor Cortex, Uka Uka, and many other villains are holding a bad guy convention and plotting his demise. All is well until a volcano erupts, a thunderstorm brews, and a tsunami ravages the coastline. Crash is informed that the Elementals have been unleashed and that he must use Coco's Portal Chamber to gather Crystals and put the Elementals back to their hibernation state. However, soon Crash, Coco and Aku Aku realize that there is more to Uka Uka and Cortex's plot of releasing the Elementals than they first thought. Cortex has created a super bandicoot called Crunch Bandicoot, who threatens to destroy Crash Bandicoot, and take over the world, with the power of the Elemental masks.
In Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure, Aku Aku sends Crash on another mission to gather Crystals, which Coco can use to build a device which will reverse the effects of Cortex's Planetary Minimizer, which has shrank the world to the size of a grapefruit.
In Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced Crash awakes to find Crunch and Coco being abducted by a strange vortex. When the vortex begins to take him, he is rescued by Aku Aku and the vortex ends up taking Fake Crash. Aku Aku informs Crash that N. Tropy is behind the abductions, and that N. Tropy has used N. Trance to hypnotise Coco and Crunch into working for him. Crash must rush to save his friends and defeat N. Trance and, ultimately, N. Tropy.
In Crash Nitro Kart, Crash is relaxing when his entire house is abducted. The Bandicoot family exit the house and finds themselves on another planet. Cortex and his cronies have also been abducted. A giant holographic display appears and explains that he is Emperor Velo the 27th, ruler of his planet. He has heard word about their racing skills, and that they must race to entertain his people. If they do not race, he will destroy the Earth. Both Team Crash and Team Cortex accept, and they now must race on a number of tracks and defeat Velo, with the intention of returning to Earth.
In Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage, a crossover game with the Spyro series, Cortex and Spyro's nemesis, Ripto have decided to team up and attack our heroes' worlds. Crash also appears in the other game of the crossover Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy.
In Crash Twinsanity, set three years after the events of Wrath of Cortex, Crash once again lives a peaceful life, digging up stuff at the beach, when Cortex disguised as Coco calls for him and lures him into the bay, introducing him to the 40-feet-tall Mecha Bandicoot. When Crash defeats the robot, Cortex attacks Crash, sending both of them "rollerbrawlling" through a cavern, eventually coming across the Evil Twins, who've come to destroy Crash's island and devastate Earth. Crash and Cortex team up to destroy these two upstarts with the Psychetron, a machine that'll allow them to travel between dimensions. However, it soon becomes apparent that these twins are from Cortex's past, in fact predating Crash as his first experiment. Recruiting his niece, Nina Cortex, the trio set out to right the wrongs and sweep the rug (or "wrong the rights and sweep the past under the rug" as Cortex plainly puts it).
In Crash Tag Team Racing, Crash and the others agree to recover the Power Gems of Von Clutch's MotorWorld and find whoever stole them. Crash' personality is very different in Crash Tag Team racing because he is able to speak gibberish and unlike other games takes a sadistic pleasure in the pain and suffering of chickens and MotorWorld's Park Drones.
In Crash Boom Bang!, Crash is one of the attendees of the World Cannonball Race. In the ending, just before the Viscount can make his wish, Crash leaps forward and makes his wish for a thousand Wumpa Fruit to fall from the sky.
[edit] Alternate forms
Many alternates of Crash are known to exist, either as fellow experiments, relatives or forms from alternate worlds.
[edit] Fake Crash
A deformed duplicate of the bandicoot, his origin is hinted merely as 'an experiment gone horribly wrong'. It is suggestible that he was created as a reattempt for Cortex's general, either being a failed clone or a prototype. His alliegence is unclear, though he has helped Crash from time to time. While Crash's intelligence can be put into question, Fake Crash almost certainly is brainless, spending most of his time mirroring his original clone.
[edit] Evil Crash/Nega Crash
Crash's form from the 10th Dimension is the complete opposite of his heroic alternate, vicious, inhospitable and lacking rational thought. It also has a tendency to eat anything in sight, and seems to have a liking to Nina Cortex. He would however ironically save the day by devouring the Evil Twins.
[edit] Bandifish
Found as an enemy in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, Crash's prehistoric ancestor resembles his desendant, having already developed a nose and orange skin. Like Crash, it embiggened great power despite its docile look, spin attacking its foes or even swallowing them whole within its huge jaws. There seemed to be a great amount of them during its era, though spent most of the time simply flipping up and down on the shallow water grounds.
[edit] Love interests
In the first Crash game, Crash had a crush on Tawna. However, according to an early build of the official website, in a matter of months after he rescues her from Cortex, Tawna leaves him a note, informing him that she has dumped him for Pinstripe Potoroo. This is a storyline plot not initially true, but it was used to cover up the sudden disappearance of Tawna due to her unsuitable sillouette. It seems to have been made canon according to her bio in Crash Boom Bang!. Crash now lives with his sister Coco, Tawna's kid replacement. However, in Crash Tag Team Racing, Pasadena O'Possum appeared to be interested with Crash. Whenever Pasadena flirted with him, Crash was apparently disturbed. However, Pasadena seems to sometimes suggest her interests with Crash are simply a joke. It is unknown if Crash has feelings for her, as he often switches to being disturbed by her interests, and suddenly showing interest in her, himself. When she talks about kissing, Crash looks like he would vomit. When she asks for a favor, Crash pants like a dog (both of these however may be simply due to the limited animation used in the dialogue cutscenes). Generally, some fans claim that Pasadena is a new love interest with Crash. Though she's not in Crash Boom Bang!, she might appear in future Crash games.
His future girlfriend has been placed as unknown, and her appearance is under progress.
Both Tawna and Pinistripe are playable characters in Crash Boom Bang!. However, it's unknown if Tawna will appear in the next few games.
[edit] Crash in other media
Crash has rarely appeared officially outside his game franchise, (it is rumored a cartoon was being produced during early development of the game series, though this has not been expanded upon) however he has become a popular icon and thus is referenced on occasion. Crash was also a pivotal marketing icon like Sonic the Hedge hog was for Sega, or even Mario for Nintendo, appearing in many Pizza Hut and Playstation T.V. adds and also in print.
Crash has made several appearances in the Spyro the Dragon game series, also produced by Universal. As well as the crossover title, Crash Purple (Fusion in PAL regions), this has ranged from promotional demos, to cameo appearances, though he has appeared less consistently than vise-versa. That said, Crash did make a cameo appearance in the Nintendo DS version of The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning, in the Dante's Freezer level.
In The Simpsons episode "Lisa Gets an "A"", Dash Dingo 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] Trivia
- In the opening of Crash Bandicoot, the computer monitor refers to Crash as 'Bandicoot 1.0', suggesting he is the first bandicoot to be subjected to the Evolv-O-Ray.
- Crash is allergic to bees, as witnessed in the Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back levels "Diggin' It" and "Bee-Having" when the bees attack Crash. He would swell up if he got stung by a swarm without an Aku Aku mask.
- He drives four cars in Crash Tag Team Racing: Trikey, Yellow Horde, Crikee, and His Extra PSP (PlayStation Portable) Car.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ Introduction to Vivendi games (PDF). Vivendi (June 2006). Retrieved on November 26, 2006.
| Heroes | Crash Bandicoot | Aku Aku | Coco Bandicoot | Crunch Bandicoot |
|---|---|
| Neutral | Doctor Nitrus Brio |
| Villains | Doctor Neo Cortex | Ripper Roo | Doctor N. Gin | Komodo Brothers | Tiny Tiger | Uka Uka | Doctor Nefarious Tropy | Dingodile | Elementals | Mega-Mix | N. Trance | Nina Cortex | Emperor Velo XXVII | Evil Twins |
| Other Characters | List of Crash Bandicoot characters |
