I'm sure I saw a Hentai like this once...

Crash Bandicoot. Merely saying the name will send many a gamers’ mind on a trip back to the 90’s, that golden age of platformers. From Croc to Spyro, the PSOne era was a cavalcade of platform hopping, level running, thing-collecting goodness. But not a one of these were as famous as Crash Bandicoot. Tight controls and an overabundance of personality made Crash stand out from the crowd, and even to this day, many will proclaim Cortex Strikes Back and Warped (the second and third games in the series respectively) to be among the finest games ever made in that venerable genre.

The story was simple enough. Doctor Neo Cortex is trying to take over the world, and thinks he’s found the perfect plan for acquiring help: to genetically modify a bandicoot named Crash. But Crash, as is typical of a heroic marsupial, decides instead to impede Cortex’s plans. With help from his brilliant sister Coco, and his magical tiki mask guardian Aku-Aku (it was the 90’s, don’t ask) Crash stands in the way of Cortex’s plans time and time again.

Luckily (or unluckily) Cortex has help on his end, in the form of a colorful rogues gallery of mutated monstrosities including: Tiny, the not so small mutant tiger, Ripper Roo, a clinically insane blue dog in a straight jacket, and Dingodile, an Australian dingo-crocodile hybrid with a penchant for flamethrowers. Cortex also had a revolving door of right hand men including the brilliant Doctor Nitrus Brio, a meek biochemical engineer with bolts in his head who becomes an off-and-on again ally to Crash, and Doctor N. Gin, a short unstable little scientist with a nuclear missile lodged in his head. Later on, an evil tiki mask (and evil younger brother to Aku Aku) named Uka Uka joins the fray, and brings even more strange underlings into the mix.

It was these memorable personalities that made the Crash games so fun to play. But, time marches on, and like most of the idols of that lost time, Crash faded into obscurity. His license was sold off and original developer Naughty Dog moved on to other things, such as Jak and Daxter and, more recently, the Uncharted series. But unlike the others of that era, Crash still survives, and his games are still coming out with appreciable regularity. As one would suspect, several of the games after the sell off sucked horribly, but something unusual happened in 2004. Travellers Tales, then the ones developing the games (not to mention existing in a time before they became slaves to the “Lego” series of games) released Crash Twinsanity to extremely low expectations.

And what was the response? The game was…actually kinda fun. Actually, it was pretty damn good (well, according to some reviewers). Crash wasn’t back to set the world on fire, but he did have the privilege of starring in one of the more solid and entertaining platformers of the post-Playstation era.

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