Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back

"A lot more varied and fair than the original, as well as having far better music and continuing to have great graphics"

Crash Bandicoot was a game released by Naughty Dog on the Playstation as the first of a series of games. It's a 3D platformer that often delves in to the 2.5D realm.

This is the second in the series, once again developed by Naughty Dog, and once again containing both 3D and 2.5D elements…however there have been some massive improvements.

But before we talk about that, the story – Dr Neo Cortex finds a large Crystal which he plans to use to power the Cortex Vortex in his evil plans. But he also needs 25 additional crystals to power it so he captures Crash Bandicoot (who you play as) and convinces Crash to gather up the crystals for him. There was a tiny bit of humour in the original, and this humour returns in slightly larger and funnier quantities though the humour is still nothing major.

Now the gameplay, where things have improved a bit to say the least – whilst still slightly challenging this game is far more fun than the first. One of my major complaints with the first game was that Crashes moveset was VERY basic – you could run, jump and perform a spin attack and that was about it. This game improves on that quite a bit as now you can slide on the ground allowing you to hit enemies low down, you can crouch and crawl forwards to get under small gaps, you can do a belly flop and you can do high jumps out of slides and crouches. The moveset is far better and adds quite a bit of needed diversity to the gameplay.

Level themes have also diversified a bit and whereas before things such as riding the hog and running from a boulder happened once or twice in the whole game this time you'll quite regularly find yourself running from boulders and giant polar bears, riding on a baby polar bear, riding a rocket and a couple other things.

The atrocious save system that the first game had has been ditched and a more traditional “save whenever you're not in a level” system takes its place.

People who've played the first game will likely remember that, though there were a lot of enemies, the main threat was traps that littered the level as well as numerous bottomless pits. This game still has a lot of traps, though enemies take a far more prominent role as they have many more lethal properties than before. Due to this the game feels a lot more fair than before which makes the control issues, well, less of an issue – though admittedly it would be nice to have analog control.

The graphics of the first game looked great considering it was made early on in the Playstation's lifetime and this game looks even better – in fact it looks fantastic considering it was made only a year after the original. The music is a HUGE improvement over the repetitive, bland tripe in the original. It still isn't great nor particularly memorable, but at least it's reasonably nice to listen to this time. The sound effects are also far better though at times the voice acting is hard to understand.

The game is a bit longer than the original, though is still rather short. Unlike the first game however you'll be likely to want to go back and collect at least a few of the diamonds.

Indeed this game is a good deal better than the first, but the true gem is to come with number 3.

Gameplay = 8/10
Graphics = 9.5/10
Music/Sound = 7.5/10
Final Score = 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/23/08

Game Release: Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (US, 10/31/97)