Alan returns to the very first instalment of the Crash series

 

In the 1990s it was impossible to review a platform game without mentioning a certain Italian plumber or a blue hedgehog. Their respective titles demonstrated that there are certain elements that are a prerequisite for such a game to be successful. It should be simple yet challenging. The levels must offer variety. It shouldn’t be possible to be killed by something that was previously unseen. The central character should be cute and appealing. It must look great and the levels should be clear and well laid out. It needs that ‘one more go’ factor and, above all, it has to be fun. Seemingly a straightforward list, but the halls of gaming history are littered with those that tried and completely failed to repeat the formula. 

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A very naughty dog

Crash Bandicoot was released for the PlayStation in 1996, produced by Naughty Dog, a game developer who have since produced some stellar titles for a variety of platforms but at the time were relatively unknown. You play as Crash, a bandicoot (no, I didn’t know what a bandicoot was either; if it helps - he looks quite like a fox) that has been blasted by evil Dr Cortex’s Evolvu ray. You must negotiate a series of levels set on a number of fictional islands, avoiding or killing baddies and collecting apples by jumping and using your spinning attack. Your aim is to eventually defeat Dr Cortex and win back your Bandicoot girlfriend who he has imprisoned (Ed – “Oh, original then?”). 

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As you play you can break crates which are scattered throughout each level, either by spin-attacking them or jumping on them. A broken crate will reveal extra lives, apples (every 100 collected awards an extra life), or Aku Aku masks - which provide protection against a hit from a bad guy.

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Other crates can be bounced on to reach higher parts of a level and some (marked with “TNT”) explode following a three second countdown after being touched. Each level also contains ‘Continue’ crates which, once broken, act as restart points. It isn’t just about completing the levels though. You can earn bonus crystals for completing extra tasks, such as breaking every box on a level. Winning a crystal on one level lets you return to another and open up areas that were apparently unreachable the first time around. 

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Maps? I don’t need no stinking maps...

The levels are quite linear and you always know where you are going. The game was marketed as being in 3D and, while this is the case, you never have true three dimensional freedom of movement. The developers have been clever though, because each level utilises different dimensions. The first couple see you working your way into the screen. But then you come to Native Fortress which is predominantly played left-to-right and up and down vertically. Boulder Dash on the other hand is a frantic level in which you are running out of the screen followed by a huge rolling boulder, Indiana Jones style. Hog Wild is a delightful stage where you ride a small warthog into the screen, avoiding pits, natives and spiky poles. This constant variety ensures that each level presents a new challenge and the three-dimensional illusion is maintained. 

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First impressions

The graphics are crisp and colourful although some of the larger characters can be a little blocky. The animation is very good with some lovely touches; if you leave Crash alone for a while he will pull out his yoyo and start entertaining himself. The sound is great and the music is extremely catchy. Movement is sharp and easily picked up and controlling your character soon becomes second nature. 

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Harder and harder and harder...

This game’s tour-de-force however is the difficulty curve, which is close to perfect. At the start things are quite relaxed, the first level doing little more than acclimatising the player to the controls. The second level appears to be almost a rehash of the first but is just a touch trickier. But, before you know it, the difficulty starts ramping up and you will be losing lives regularly.

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You can rack-up lots of lives by collecting fruit, breaking extra-life boxes and completing the bonus levels (which can be accessed by finding three secret map pieces on a level) and this is just as well because they are soon badly needed. Timing becomes increasingly important, with levels containing long sections that have to be negotiated with precision before a safe spot appears.

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The reason the difficulty curve is so special is that no matter how much you struggle with a level, the next one always seems harder. There is no respite. You reach Road to Nowhere, a massively challenging level where you have to negotiate a rope-bridge with missing and wobbly slats and you think it can’t get any worse. But by the time you reach High Road, a very similar level but much, much harder, you realise that Road to Nowhere was a doddle in comparison.  

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Make no mistake; this is a tremendously tricky game. It gets tough pretty quickly and then just turns the screw relentlessly. But it is fair. There is nothing that kills you that you can’t foresee. All moving platforms and bad guys, including the bosses that appear at the end of each island, move in predetermined patterns so their positions can always be predicted. But nevertheless you will die, a lot. Consequently you will frequently want to put the controller through the television screen, but your frustration is always with yourself and not the game, and you will always want another go. It continually offers a challenge and never gets boring.

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Where have all my lives gone?

If I have to find a negative it is that the save-game feature doesn’t work well. You can save you progress to memory card, or generate a level code (if you don’t have a card) each time you complete a bonus level, but while your progress is saved, your accumulated number of lives is not. Restarting a long way through the game with only your standard allocation of five lives is woefully inadequate and unfortunately this means that the only way to build up the number of lives you need to tackle the later stages of the game is to play from the start each time (this was changed for the re-mastered version so that your accumulated lives were saved). 

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Almost perfect

At the start of this review I gave a checklist for the ideal platform game. This ticks them all. It is a fantastic, captivating, hugely challenging game, offering a great variety of level and producing an enormous degree of satisfaction as you progress. It will make you laugh and cry and it will frustrate you to the point of screaming, but it offers a platforming challenge the like of which I haven’t seen before or since.

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In gameplay terms this is about as good as it gets. Better, in my opinion, than the second and third instalments, because the level design is tighter and the difficulty curve is just perfect. It might not quite have the same looks, but in terms of pure gameplay this is the equal of any Mario game that I have played and I can’t give a platform game higher praise than that. 

Indisputably a must-have game for any fan of the genre.

 

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​Graphics - 88%

Bright, colourful and vibrant, some larger characters are a tad blocky though.

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​​Sounds - 93%

Brilliantly catchy music and great effects.

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​Grab-factor - 93%

Once you have the controls mastered this is a hard game to put down.

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​​Playability - 96%

Quite simply one of the best platform games ever made. Simply wonderful.

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​​Verdict - 93%

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AG 08/06/2018

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Featured in Pixel Addict magazine, issue 21

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