Marsupial gives plumber and hedgehog a run for their money.

User Rating: 9 | Crash Bandicoot (Platinum) PS
Throughout most of the 90s Nintendo's Mario and Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog dominated the platforming market. Many mascots came and went, trying to compete with them but never really making an absolute lasting impression. But around the release of the Nintendo 64 and the groundbreaking Super Mario 64, developer Naughty Dog introduces Crash Bandicoot. Crash was emphasized as Sony's answer to Super Mario 64. Crash is a wacky marsupial created by the mad genius Dr. Neo Cortex, who's creating an army of mutant animals to help him conquer the world. When he tries to create Crash as his general it turns into a disaster for him. Cortex throws him out of his tower and sets his eyes on Crash's girlfriend Tawna. So now it's up to Crash to stop Cortex and his army, clean up his pollution, and rescue his girlfriend.

The game is a 3-D platformer, but unlike Super Mario 64 this game keeps you on a set path, encouraging you to constantly keep moving, making the game feel more fast paced. Even though you use the D-pad to control Crash the controls work rather well for the most part. While the game is linear the level design is top notch and often challenging. Some levels will even be presented in 2.5-D perspective for more traditional side-scrolling platforming. Scattered throughout each level are crates. Crates contain several items needed to help you throughout your adventure. Wumpa fruits are the most common items you'll encounter. Like Mario's coins and Sonic's rings, collecting 100 Wumpa fruits grant you an extra life. Most crates are meant to be destroyed, though a few act as switches to solidify crates that were not there previously. In order to get a 100% completion in each level you'll need to destroy every crate (some you'll need to go back to later once you unlocked the secret path) and get to the end without dying once. No one is going to to be able to do this on the first try, especially beginners. This helps to encourage replay value. Each level only takes a few minutes to complete and one should be able to beat the game in about five hours, a little longer if you plan on completing everything.

There are also Crash icons that act as extra lives. Finding a crate with a mask will release the island witch doctor Aku Aku, who will protect you from damage either once or twice. Collecting three masks will make Crash invincible for a short time. There are also icons of Twana, Cortex, and Cortex's assistant Nitrus Brio. Collecting these will take you to a Bonus Round where you can get wumpa fruits and keys to access new areas. Completing a bonus round will also allow you to save your progress.
There are countless enemies, traps, and pitfalls in your way and often you are going to have to do very quick thinking in order to make it without dying. Crash can only get hit once before he dies (but Aku Aku eases the stress a bit). Crash has a couple of ways of attacking. You can either jump on them or attack the with your spin move. Enemies certainly come in all flavors and there are even a few bosses along the way. Unfortunately, the bosses a little easy. The only real gripe in this game is the way you save your progress. In order to save your progress you have to either collect three tokens in a level and complete that bonus level without falling, get 100% completion on a level (which you are not going to be able to do right away), or complete an entire area.
This is one of the most gorgeous platformers on the Playstation. While Mario went for a cleaner and simpler look, Crash has more detailed, vibrant, colorful environments and character models that truly showed off the technical abilities of the Playstation at the time. The music in the game is also very catchy and mainly centers around tropical beats and rhythms that perfectly suit the game. The sound effects are wacky and work rather well also.

To sum things up:

PROS:
-Excellent cartoonish graphics
-Good control overall
-Challenging platforming
-Well designed stages
-Excellent music and sound
-Wacky atmosphere

CONS:
-Annoying way to save progress
-Bosses are pretty easy
-Rather short game

Minor annoyances aside, this a very well crafted platformer that helped to start off a popular series. Crash proved that Mario and Sonic were not the only platforming titans. This is certainly a must own for your Playstation library, especially if you're a fan of platformers and Crash Bandicoot.