Crash Twinsanity

"It took some time, but the Crash Bandicoot series is back on its feet thanks to this brilliant piece of software..."

Crash Bandicoot was a good game eight years ago, being one of the first "3D" games on the PlayStation that didn't have an isometric camera. Crash Bandicoot 2 : Cortex Strikes Back took the Crash formula and upgraded it, with crystal collecting and a more complete gem collecting system. Crash Bandicoot : Warped took the good parts of Crash 2, added many types of varied gameplay and the relics system. Then, a year later, it was CTR : Crash Team Racing's time. Naughty Dog copied on Mario Kart 64, and the teacher became the pupil. CTR was even better than Mario Kart, and it was Naughty Dog's last Crash Bandicoot game. Don't cry, more Crash games came out after.

Or you could cry, because the next Crash games were altogether pretty lame. First, the worst Crash game ever : Crash Bash. This crappy clone of Mario Party was just boring. Don't ask why Eurocom didn't do any more Crash Bandicoot games after Crash Bash... Then, Traveller's Tales took the series and... COPIED CRASH 3 ALMOST EXACTLY! Only the Atlasphere parts hadn't already been made by Naughty Dog, AND two out of the three atlasphere levels are boring. Lame. 2002 was Crash's first year without a new game since 1996. In 2003, Vicarious Visions arrived with Crash Nitro Kart, which is... guess what? Yes! A CTR CLONE! And a crappy one. Four races less than CTR, and save for the brand-new FMV sequences, nothing original!

That was until the release of the eighth episode of the Crash series, Crash Twinsanity. The game starts like any other Crash game before it : Crash and Coco are having fun on N.Sanity Island and then Cortex messes everything up. Using his trusty Evolvo-Ray, the evil scientist makes Crash's sister sleep to avoid getting spotted, and then disguises himself as Coco. Coco-Cortex lures Crash to the bay, and the fun begins for the player (that's you... :-) ! You can explore a great part of N.Sanity Island from the beginning. You can take some time chasing a flock of chickens into nitroglycerin crates, jumping on some snake heads to reach the top of a cliff or just follow Coco-Cortex. She/he will teach you the basics of playing as Crash (jumping, spinning, sliding, crawling, and all the other stuff you did since eight years...). When you finally reach the bay, Cortex will blow his own cover and reveal himself to Crash. After three years prisoner of an ice cube in the antarctic wastes, Cortex decided to invite his nemesis to a birthday party... or, the exact opposite! After kicking some Cortex butt, Crash Bandicoot-style, N.Gin arrives at the commands of his master's latest creation, Crash's mechanical twin brother, Megabandicoot! This second boss fight is incredible, but once the battle's over, the REAL fun begins! Cortex lunges at Crash to form one of the game's new gameplay twists, the Rollerbrawl. While Crash and Cortex are fighting, you have to control the ball they form together. This is similar to the Atlasphere sections in The Wrath of Cortex, but the Rollerbrawl sections are much more fun, even though it may only be because of the more well-made level design. Oh, and don't forget to immobilize the Rollerbrawl sometimes ; you'll get some very funny animations of Crash trying to strangle Cortex, or Cortex spanking Crash...

Once the two fighters manage to separate each other, Cortex sees something fans of the series will immediately recongnize : one of those damn crystals you've been collecting in each friggin' game in the series. Cortex is very proud of himself when he grabs hold of the crystal. But Crash also wants the damn thing... Another fight? No! Crash takes the crystal and pulls the struggling Cortex wherever he pleases. This feature is entirely new, and is actually a lot of fun! You can throw Cortex on platforms you don't have access to, use Cortex as a club to break boxes, make a more powerful spinning attack on enemies, and a few other moves. When you throw Cortex away, he can help you in a fight, activate switches, or shoot anything that moves with his Evolvo-Ray.

After some more platforming fun (and another Rollerbrawl), Crash and Cortex are back on the surface of N.Sanity Island. A zip fastener appears in the sky and opens up. Two parrot-like aliens come out of outer space, or more precisely from the tenth dimension, and announce Crash and Cortex that they'll destroy their archipelago. Cortex laughs at them, and one of the parrots gets his brain out of his head and says : "This is the part where you run away screaming... Catch ya later, brainiac!" That's one of the best sequences of the game, so I had to write it here... Wait until you see it, it'll be much more funny then...

Now that the brainiac is gone, you regain control of Crash, alone at last... You'll soon meet up with Cortex, who begs for Crash's help. Time for some a new gameplay twist! Cortex is chased by bumblebees and is blinded by fear. You have to make sure his path is safe so he doesn't get hurt while he flees from the bees. These parts might not be as action-packed as the others, but it's really fun nonetheless. There will also be a pretty mediocre stealth mini-game soon after, in which you have to hide behind herbs to avoid being spotted by the tribesmen who captured the poor scientist.

Later in the game, while Cortex is watching from a high tower, Crash will push him on the ski slopes below, jump on him and use his "new pal" as a snowboard. These parts are just plain funny, and almost always finish as a Rollerbrawl. This "Humiliskate" plays just like any ski/snowborad mini-game, but is only much more funny.

You'll also play as Cortex alone sometimes. The Cortex parts are a welcome change of pace from the Crash parts and the Twinsanity parts, but are also really hard. But the most great feature of Crash Twinsanity is the introduction of Cortex's niece, Niña. Niña has a spinning attack similar to Crash's, and can extend her arm to attack enemies at a distance. She can also grab hold of some rings to reach the top of a high wall. Neat stuff.

This review has gone on a bit too long, so we'll quickly cover the technical part of the game. The controls work really well, all of Crash/Cortex/Niña/Crash-Cortex duo's moves are executed easily. The graphics could have used some more work. The character models look like those found on the PlayStation One, and the textures have a pretty (or rather not pretty) low resolution. The FMV sequences, however, are top-notch, some of the best I have seen in a video game. Perhaps only Silent Hill 2 had better ones. The sound in Crash Twinsanity is amazing! The voice acting is surprisingly very good and the sound effects are fantastic. But the best part about it is the incredible music by Spiralmouth. It's far from the amateur stuff found in other Crash Bandicoot games, it's simply amazing. Too bad we can't say that much about the graphics. Twinsanity isn't the longest game around, but as most platformers, it's replayable many times, and each gem you collect unlocks a new feature, like movies, drawings, animations, and much more stuff you want to see, so you'll want to collect all of them.

[NOTE : You can download the amazing soundtrack from Crash Twinsanity here on Gamespot, just click on the "Downloads" button on top of the page... Have fun!]

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/16/05