Crash Bandicoot 2

Release Date: November 6, 1997

Crash is back! put is this a genuine attempt to further the character’s career, or just a cash-in quick exercise before has-been-dom beckons for the bandicoot?

The PlayStation would appear to be in the middle of a severe bout of sequelitis, = = with a host of updates, revisions and follow-ups to the format'’s most popular titles. And in the midst of all this name-dropping and cashing-in its no surprise to see that peculiar marsupial, Crash Bandicoot, back in platform-pouncing action.

The excuse — ef, scenario, rather ~ this time is that Crash’s Nemesis, the twisted a Dr Neo Cortex, has deceived Crash into @ collecting crystals which are needed to protect the earth from impending doom though Cortex will actually use them to power a special master crystal capable of destroying the earth blah blah blah... whatever. The simple fact is that Crash has to make his way through 25 levels (not counting the various bosses and secret bits), picking up the pointy purple gems in each level

CBZ has one major enhancement over the original game, in that - as you probably know ~ Crash Bandicoot had the most perverse and frustrating save game system. You had to collect three tokens to be able to enter a bonus round, and only after this were you allowed to save your position. Which means that if, in the heat of the action, you missed a token, you could die and have to replay that level. But not just that one, oh no, You might also be sent back to the start of the level before that. And considering the “treacherous going in some of the later stages, this needlessly complex system » made Crash Bandicoot just ever-soslightly bloody annoying. Not so the sequel: Developer Naughty Dog has kept things nice and simple by allowing Crash to

enter any one of five stages from a central warp room; after each stage you can save the game (memory card only), and you can play those five levels in any order until they'vé all been successfully de gemmed. Ahh... thank you, Naughty Dog. Instead of the incessantly jungley theme of the first game, CB2 takes place across five themed areas: Jungle (well they had to, really); Glacial (slippy-slidey ice levels); Sewer (dimly-lit tunnels with murky water); Cave (lots of hanging around from the ceiling); and Space (robots, Jetpacks and stuff). However, there is a sixth warp room which can be accessed from five secret points which are secreted (naturally) about the game. Once inside this new warp room, three of the doors lead back to secret sections of previous levels, while the final two doors lead to totally new levels ~ which we're contractually obliged not to tell you about because they're just too secret.

When you've callected all the purple crystals from your five stages, Dr Cortex’s hologram appears to offer his congratulations; you then climb on to the central dais which revolves up and out of the screen, transporting Crash to an in-between boss section. Here we meet some of the mad adversaries from his first adventures - such as the mad Incendiary marsupial, Ripper Roo - plus one or two brand new heavies (ahem), culminating in a one-on: one with the dreaded Dr. Cortex himself.

During the course of each level there are also bonus sections which are a direct descendant of those seen in the original. Again, the idea is to collect the goodies (bonus apples, protective witch doctor masks, extra bandicoot lives) and make it to the end intact. These are slightly more puzzley than before and rapidly become tough to complete. Thank heavens they're a bit easier

to find this time round (they're usually clearly marked in the centre of a clearing - you can't miss 'em), Another new(ish) addition is the secret crystals of differing colours which provide a secondary challenge for the seasoned platformer. Or anyone wanting to eke out those last, vital drops of gameplay before flogging it second-hand.

Only by completing hidden areas can Crash collect’ the coloured crystals, which then serve to fill in the transparent platforms, allowing him access to other crystals, and so on. It's a welcome addition but a little derivative of another well-known 3D platform game you might have heard of...

Indeed, after an auspicious start — Crash is transported to the first warp room, whereupon a Doctor Cortex hologram foretells of the perils ahead — you very quickly realise that by Crash Bandicoot 2 what they really mean is Crash Bandicoot: More Of The Same. Admittedly there's a lot of variety in the game styles, but they're all pretty much the same as in the first title. You have your running into the screen, jumping across platforms and over the water. There's the running towards the screen being chased by a very large thing (including giant boulders and an enormous polar bear). Then there's a repeat performance from the classic sideways scrolling levels. And finally we pay homage to the hilarious ‘Crash on hog-back racing into the distance levels — only this time it’s a polar bear cub and we're jumping over ice flows and avoiding killer whales.

It's all terribly well done and, we think, incredibly good looking; but there's almost nothing new here. The game styles we've seen before, and almost all of the new features — monkey-swinging from wire-mesh walkways, platforms which appear when you've collected gems, slippyslidey ice levels, and so on — are either staple platform fare or rather poorly ripped off from Super Mario 64. So we're in something of a dilemma: CB2 is obviously an improvement of CB — the gameplay is just as engaging, and probably even more handsome. The annoying flaws have been ironed out, and the learning curve is maybe just a tad gentler. But most of the newness of Crash Bandicoot 2 lies in the tweaked structure and the graphics: the mechanics, the game styles, the situations, the general feel of the game are all a bit too familiar. So: if you played the original game and loved it to bits, here you are ~ another 27 levels. If you played the original and found it mildly annoying, try this new and improved version. And if you've never played Crash Bandicoot at all, this is the one to go for (even if you have seen the original game second-hand for £15 less). Oh, and if you hate platformers, why the hell have you just spent the last 10 minutes reading this review? Duh.