What a more appropriate time to write about Crash Bandicoot eh? This is assuming that you heard the news earlier this year about the remakes coming out, and more recently the new trailer for said remakes?…
On this 7th day of varying amounts of relevance Winter + Gaming I’m putting Crash Bandicoot 2 up on stage.
It wasn’t until the 2nd installment of the Crash franchise that the beloved bandicoot traversed some wintry worlds in his glorious 16bit adventuring, so let’s just get the specific version of Crash Bandicoot question out the way. Oh and can I also take a moment to run myself into a Nitro Box? because it turns out upon some last minute gif hunting and fact checking that apparently Crash Bandicoot 2 came out in Europe on December 6th 1997!
I’m a European! I’ve had the idea to mention Crash Bandicoot since before I even went ahead with this daily charade, if I’d of known this I clearly would’ve posted this article yesterday when the game turned 19 over here. *facepalms
Regardless of the missed opportunity. The driving memories behind this Crash 2 winter nostalgia was that some of these Snow based stages had you riding “Polar” the polar bear. These are essentially the “auto-scrollers” of this platform game, which long story short… You’re constantly forced to keep moving.
These hectic stages appear numerous times throughout Crash 2, and as cool as they are (no pun intended) you’ll always feel on the edge of your seat. This will either be because you generally tend to care about surviving in video games and it can be easy to miss time some jumps, or! what’s more important to the hardcore gamer… you might miss a hidden secret/ collectible whilst being rushed!! Nice fitting stage music though.
I do actually recommend trying to give an old Crash Bandicoot game a go though if you haven’t in a while. Even if (like me) you’re excited to buy and replay the trilogy on it’s PlayStation 4 HD remake in 2017, it’ll be good for you to remember the roots.
The jury is still out until we have the PS4 remake if they’ll actually survive the transition or not, because as simple as the task may seem to the casual observer, it is quite difficult to tinker with an old game engine and translate it to a new generation. For instance, you need to remember that Crash is from a pre-Analog stick world. In fact I don’t believe it was until Crash 3: Warped that you could use the Dualshock controller for analog control.
The quick 8-way movement of Crash on a directional pad would’ve been taken into consideration when originally designing the levels within those games, so it’s possible the games might be easier or harder given full 360 degree control or any matter of tampering with what originally got the job done in the 90’s. I wish Activision the best of luck in nailing it and ensuring Crash comes back to high regards, because who knows, maybe we’ll get a true Crash 4 for dessert afterwards if it succeeds?
These days, buying the old copies FOR PlayStation 1 can fluctuate from reasonable to overpriced through some places, but if you have a PS3, PSVita or PSP you can pick them up cheap via digital download on the PlayStation Store, or alternatively you can skip a pricey console and just get a PlayStation TV box to give you access to play old PS1 games on any TV. You will need to get a controller for it though.
[PlayStation TV on Amazon UK / Amazon US]
You’ll also be able to pick up CTR (Crash Team Racing) off the Playstation store too. A game that I know for sure would be much desired if it also got the HD remaster along with some online multi-player added in. The PlayStation 4 could sure use it’s own Mario Kart rival
*featured Japanese PlayStation Christmas Postcard image, Plus Crash Christmas pic were found on http://crashland.elynx.fr – a fan site full of Crash pics and promo materials for the ever curious*
Gifs as per usual for me, are found through searching Tumblr.com