Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure

"Crash makes his GBA debut a good one"

Story

Hmm, so the world has been shrunk to a tiny size eh? Yep, Cortex is back and up to his old tricks again, and it's up to good old Crash Bandicoot to save the day once more. I guess it's not the most amazing story you've ever heard in your life, but this is Crash, and this is a platformer. It must be so hard for these developers to think up a unique story nowadays…

Gameplay – 10/10

Being on the Game Boy Advance, this game is strictly 2D. But it matters not to Crash, as his original PlayStation game featured a heavy amount of 2D side-scrolling action anyway, and it was a big hit. It's the same formula for Crash's debut on the GBA. You start in the warp room with a total of five levels to choose from. Once you collect the crystal from each level and get to the end, you then get the chance to fight a boss. Beat the boss, and you can move up a level in the warp room, giving you access to five more levels. And that's how you go about beating the game. You get the five crystals on each level of the warp room until you reach the final boss fight.

There are a mixture of levels to play through, including the traditional side-scrolling ones where you run from left to right; underwater levels where you have to swim all over the place whilst killing sharks and avoiding mines; and flying levels where Crash uses a jetpack and defeats enemies with some sort of gun. Those who've played previous Crash games will know exactly what to expect, and it's great fun.

But the real beauty of the Crash games is that there are so many extras to complete in order to get the 100% secrets the games have to offer. You can gain gems by breaking all the crates in a level, and special coloured gems by finding secret areas in levels. One of my favourite parts of Crash games though, is the time trial mode. When you enter the level, you can pick up a stopwatch at the start. This will start a timer going. What you have to do is get to the end of the level as fast as you can, and should you get under the required time limit, you'll win a relic. Depending on how fast you beat the level, you'll get either a blue relic, a gold relic, or a platinum relic. Platinum relics are the hardest to get, so you have to practice hard. For me, the time trial is one of my favourite parts of the game, and you'll spend hours coming back to it after you beat the story.

It's got a nice length to the game as you would expect from a platformer, and it can get quite difficult at times. As you progress through the game, you'll find that it gets harder to beat the levels, with bigger jumps and more enemies to defeat. The bosses give you a real challenge so you'll spend a good deal of time trying to beat it. Then you have to get 100% secrets too, which will take you a long time. There's a lot of replay value.

Controls – 10/10

The GBA is perfectly suited to this sort of game so there's no problem. You run with the d-pad, jump with A and spin attack with B. You can run and press R to slide, while pressing R on its own will make you crouch. Jumping and pressing R makes you body slam. There are a lot of moves at your disposal but you won't have any problems mastering them. Like I say, the GBA is perfectly suited to this game.

Graphics – 8/10

Not the best the GBA can produce, but fine nonetheless. The character sprites are clear, as are the platforms you walk on. The backgrounds could have done with a bit more detail, but it's not a major issue. Everything's as clear as you could want it to be so you shouldn't have any problems.

Sound – 8/10

Great little tunes that go well with the Crash action. You'll know what to expect really, and there're no faults.

Overall – 9/10

Crash Bandicoot XS (The Huge Adventure) is a fantastic little 2D side-scroller for the GBA. Platform fans should get this as it's one of the best to appear on the little handheld. There's a lot of replay value and everything looks and sounds great. It should be very cheap in the stores now, so you'd be mad not

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/05, Updated 04/09/07