Crash Bash is capable of being great fun for a long time, but there's not enough here to highly recommend it.
Crash bash allows you to duke it out with other players via multitap throughout a small set of gameplay modes. At the main menu, you can chose to either go through the story mode alone or with a friend, or you can do some basic instant action with up to 4 players. Take note that whatever you do, if you want full enjoyment out of this, you'll definitely want to go through the story mode. The story mode is quite simple in that you simply have to go through every level in each of the hubs and then challenge that hub's boss to proceed onwards. Its as simple as that, and is not very interesting, although just like previous crash games you can go back into already completed levels to get special items to unlock more levels.
The game has a mere total of 7 modes of gameplay, and each of these has 4 maps to play on. These maps unfortunately don't offer much variety for their respective modes, as they all only have very minor differences from one another that don't enhance the gameplay all that much, only exception being the medieval madness mode which has extreme variation for all 4 of its maps. Most of the modes are fortunately entertaining for a while, though which modes you enjoy will definitely vary from player to player.
As has already been said, you can play with up to 3 other players in the game. But you might not find yourself playing for all that long due to the limited ammount of mini-games available. You can play against the AI if you don't have 3 other friends available, but the AI is quite lackluster and can't match up to human players, but they ultimately do just fine in a pinch. It should be noted however that if you up the difficulty for the AI on certain modes, they become a bit cheap. The Polar push mode is the worst offender here by far since the pushing power of the AI becomes vastly more powerful than that of any character you use.
Graphically, Crash Bash looks pretty good. The character models look just fine and animate fluently, though the actual arenas tend to be on the bland side. Sound wise, the game's sounds are repetitive, and the characters keep making the same sounds over and over. It should also be noted that in my experience with the game, I occasionally witnessed the game freeze up during gameplay. This could only be remedied by a complete reset of the console. This may not occur with everyone, but I've had it occur quite a few times. Fortunately, the cases of this happening are ultimately far and few between.
Ultimately, Crash Bash is a lukewarm party game that won't appeal to everyone. It can ultimately be only be recommended to people looking for a quick fix in the party game genre. Its a great rental, but don't buy it unless you really like some of the modes.
Pros: Gameplay modes can be quite fun.
Cons: Not enough here to keep you occupied for very long. Poor AI that can be cheap in certain modes with higher difficultiy settings.
Recommendable for: Anyone who wants a quick party game fix. This one's best as a rental, but can prove to be very fun for those who get into it.