Crash Bandicoot

Author: Efrain Silva

Crash Bandicoot came out in 1996, for the very first Sony game console, the Playstation. It would very soon, unbeknownst to many, quickly become only one of many more games that would come after it. Yes, Crash Bandicoot made quite a mark on the PS world, and it wasn't long till the following game with his character came out, Cortex Strikes Back, the following year.

Naughty Dog, the developer that made the first game, returned to work on this one and make it no less epic. Cortex Strikes Back was also called Crash Bandicoot 2, and the main character, yes, is named Crash, by the way. And you guessed it ---- he is a crazy old bandicoot. He's the protagonist in basically every game. And in this second game, it all takes place on some islands right outside of Australia: Dr. Neo Cortex, the villain of this game, manages to trick Crash and kidnap him ...uh oh.

The next Crash Bandicoot game that came out was also released just one year later after the last one, the third title calling itself Warped. Now, in Warped, things pick up right where the last game left off. And you find that the Cortex Vortex, owned by the nefarious villain from the last game, comes crashing right down on the planet and causes all sorts of other problems in its wake.

Ima Ima is unleashed, whom you will later come to find out is actually Aku Aku's twin. Makes sense now, eh? Similar names for similar evil twins. Nice.

Dr. Nefarious Tropy also joins Cortex and the twins, to make for a plot more sinister than ever before. It involves collecting crystals which will allow them to do more harm than they've ever done before ---- that is, unless both Crash and Coco Bandicoot can come to the rescue and collect them first. May the good guys win!

The next game on the Crash Bandicoot timeline would be none other than CTR or Crash Team Racing, which, as you guessed, is a multiplayer racing game where you can go head to head with your friends to see who is smarter, faster, and overall more advanced on the speed courts. Race to win. Have fun.

You get 5 racing modes to choose from, so there's plenty of options to suit whatever you may like. Also, the story mode that you get to play through ---- or should we say race through ---- is really something else. Check it out when you've got to time.

As for the next game in Crash history, were looking at the 2000 release title Crash Bash, which was a hit in many ways ; those who owned a PS gaming system were once again glad they did so as this new game took them to new challenges, modes, worlds, and even characters, respectively. What was different about this particular game, among so many other things, was that it was developed and released by different people this time around. Though it still got to be a part of the same PS console that the previous four were released for, it was instead developed by Eurocom Entertainment Software, produced by Jon Williams, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment.

So this was the very first title in which Naughty Dog had no part to play, and as such, the game managed to go in a new direction, all the while still keeping intact a few things that people had come to love from the games prior to it. The game got mixed reviews, but in my opinion, it’s still a good one to have on your collection. It also incorporated both single player and multiplayer modes.

Now, onto the next title that came out, called Crash Bandicoot : The Wrath of Cortex. Ah, I just love when the title tells me everything, don't you? Such is the case here, but keep in mind that, this time, it's not Cortex Strikes Back (we already had him do that in the second game, if you've been following along up to this point). This time, as the title implies, he's both smarter and angrier than before, and it's full wrath time! Can you survive?

We hope so, because there's more games after this one that need your attention, such as the next title, Huge Adventure, which came out in 2002, just one year after this one. And in Huge Adventure, you find Cortex and Uka Uka back at it! Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced and Crash Nitro Kart came out the year after that (interesting how Crash Bandicoot games had a tendency to get released annually, like 1 game per year. I think this was extremely rare at the time, and the only series I actually remember knowing of that released a game or more each year was Mario, or even Pokemon. I guess this was one of Sony's ways of hitting back hard and trying to stay in business with its games).

This time, Vicarious Visions developed the game, and Universal Interactive published it. Guess what else was different? It was available on multiple platforms at once. That's right. Anyone who owned either a GBA (Gameboy Advance), a GC (GameCube), a PS 2 (PlayStation 2), an Xbox, an N-Gage device, or even one of certain mobile phones that supported the game, could play it.

How cool! And after this amazing game came Purple : Ripto's Rampage, as well as Twinsanity, both in 2004. And in 2005 came Tag Team Racing, a name which also spilled the beans on what the game was about ---- tagging up with buddies to achieve the impossible, in the world of Crash Bandicoot racing, like only this series of games could do.

But there's more : Crash Boom Bang! (which had the title of Crash Festival in Japan) hit the U.S. in late 2006, developed by Dimps, this time, and published by Vivendi Universal Games (with Mr. Takeshi Narita at the directors helm, this time, too). The game got a good reception, which was soon forgotten as soon as its successor, Crash of the Titans, hit sales floors the year after (2007). Then, right after that, Mind Over Mutant made it's 2008 debut (the title pokes fun at the common expression, "mind over matter", bit in a genuine way that only Crash Bandicoot creators know how to do, hehe).

Shortly after that, there was the N. SANE Trilogy in 2017, which rewrote Crash Bandicoot in a whole new way, followed up only by this year's (2019) title, Team Racing NITRO Fueled. The 2017 and 2019 games have held a solid reception so far, scoring 8 out of 10, by most reviews online.