A classic of the 90's
Hello hiveans? A few days ago I was talking about one of my favorite PSOne games. Today I bring you a retro review of my second favorite game, the famous Crash Bandicoot.
Are you already sitting comfortably with your beer in your hand? I hope so, because a great story is coming hahaha.
It was 1984 when Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin founded their company Naughty Dog. At the beginning they were dedicated to the creation of videogames for computers, such as Apple II, PC, etc. And in 1991 they signed their first contract to develop a video game called Rings of Power for the Mega Drive console. It didn't really stand out too much.
Later in 1994, Andy and Jason presented their game Way of the Warrior at CES. The game was practically a clone of Mortal Kombat for the 3DO console, but it caught the attention of Mark Cerny, creator of Marble Madness and a former leader in the development of Sega Technical Institute. He was also the head of Universal Interactive Studios at the time. And who knew? He was the architect of the PS4 years later.
Way of the Warrior - 1994
Gameplay By: Tangier
Mark Cerny left Naughty Dog in charge of developing a 3D platform style game to sell to Sony. The idea of the game was to create a protagonist inspired by the "Demonio de Tasmania" from the Looney Tunes. The first name thought for this character was "Willie The Wombat" (what a weird name hahaha) but they had problems to register it because another videogame company called Hudson Soft had registered a very similar name, Willy Wombat. This game was released in 1997 and was not distributed in the west.
Willy Wombat - 1997
Anyway, to avoid problems, Universal Interactive Studios decided to change the name of the game (thank god hahaha) and went for "Crash Bandicoot". The name came up in a brainstorming session. The project was presented to Sony and they got to work on the character designs. Charles Zembrillas, an artist with extensive experience in the field of animated series, was in charge of this. He was the one who designed the characters Ghostbusters, Captain N, James Bond Jr, Sonic, among others.
First designs of Crash
The game was officially unveiled at E3 1996 and on September 9, it would hit stores in the U.S. It arrived in Europe almost a month later, on November 8.
More than 6.82 million units were sold worldwide (3.23 in the US alone). The game had 3 more installments, the two sequels, which together with the original have been "remastered" in N. Sane Trilogy, and Crash Team Racing (another of my favorite PSOne games).
The story of the game takes us to the rescue of Crash's girlfriend, having to go through 3 islands with an average of 9 levels each. In the game you can save games, become invulnerable with the famous mask, get extra lives by collecting apples and getting them in boxes. There are even bonus stages within the game, a marvel.
The game had 2D and 3D scenarios. How to forget that ball level hahaha. It was probably one of the most frustrating, especially if your goal was to break all the boxes and take all the apples.
The setting and graphics of the game were very striking and beautiful. Just like the sound of the game was of very good quality. The music was quite catchy.
I remember my mom used to play it with me back then and we had a hard time passing the game hahaha. But there was never a lack of laughter, especially when my mom was left in ashes or was thrown by the giant ball😂🤣.
It was definitely an amazing game. It became very fun and challenging at the same time. There were too many levels that drove us crazy, but it was totally worth it.
We have come to the end of this post folks. I think writing so much about the game made me want to play it again hahaha.
I hope you liked this post a lot my friends. See you in a next "Retro Review" gamers friends, greetings and hugs to all! 👋🤗
