Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath Of Cortex (GameCube)

Never less than fun, yet never a realistic contender when compared with the genre-defining Mario 64, Crash has sometimes received a fairly rough ride from the press. With original developers Naughty Dog passing on the chance to produce a next-gen version, Travellers Tales have created this effort, and in terms of gameplay there's no progression here whatsoever. This is Crash as we know and tolerate him, albeit with fancier lighting effects. All the familiar faces return, including (obviously, given the title) arch-goon Dr Cortex.

And it's great, as it goes. Ignore the on-rails nature of the gameplay; it's unlikely you'll come across a jauntier, more ridiculous, stupid-brilliant game for some time. As well as the usual platform action, there are mine-cart chases à la Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom, hysterically playable Marble Madness-style levels, secrets, bonuses, vehicles, new moves; all kinds of everything, as Dana might have put it if she were into video games rather than winning the 1970 Eurovision Song Contest. Simple to pick up and play, crammed with outlandish ideas, colourful, loud and a laugh riot into the bargain, it would be a hard heart that didn't warm to this old 'coot. --Steve Colton

The graphics are great, and the in-game sound is cool (although the cut-scenes seem to be a little quiet), and on the whole the gameplay is as good as we can expect.

One minor whine: the 3-d element means that sometimes making jumps can be nigh-on impossible (unless you have 20 lives and can hope to get lucky one out of twenty times).

This only happens on three levels, though (using Coco, so be warned), so don't be put off.

It is the best platform game on the GC right now.


Crash is FINALLY back!!   November 9, 2002
 6 out of 7 found this review helpful

Now, im a huge crash fan and have all the games, so i was really looking forward to this game when i originally bought it on ps2. But, the loading times were just too annoying and so i took it back. i bought this new gamecube incarnation, now hoping for a fresh challenge after the pure delight that is mario sunshine. what i found was a brill platformer, with no awful loading times (these plagued the ps2 version by the way)Im still playing this now, and reckon that it is a fun game for any platform fan, or just someone who wants a new cool game, just dont expect to still be stuck on a level after a week!! (thats for casual game players by the way, hardcores will have this game done and dusted in a weekend)