Crash of the Titans

Crash of the Titans is a platform/beat 'em up video game developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Vivendi Games for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable (ported by SuperVillain Studios), Wii and Xbox 360. The Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS versions of the game were developed by Amaze Entertainment. The game was first released in North America on October 4, 2007, in Europe on October 12, 2007 and in Australia on October 18, 2007. It is the first game in the "Crash Bandicoot" series not to have a Japanese release. It was the last game to be published by Vivendi before Activision merged with the company the following year.
"Crash of the Titans" is the fourteenth installment in the "Crash Bandicoot" video game series, and the sixth game in the main franchise. The game's story centers on the discovery of a substance known as "Mojo", which series antagonist Doctor Neo Cortex and his niece Nina harvest to turn the inhabitants of the Wumpa Islands into an army of ferocious mutants known as "Titans". The protagonist of the series, Crash Bandicoot, must stop Cortex and Nina by using the technique of "jacking" to take control of and destroy the Titans while collecting mojo; he must also rescue his sister Coco, who has been kidnapped and forced to help build a doomsday machine that will assist the Titans in Cortex and Nina's bid for world domination.
"Crash of the Titans" received mixed reviews upon release. Although the jacking concept, visuals, voice acting and humor were generally met positively, critics considered the combat to be repetitive and unbalanced, and criticized the nonadjustable camera. The Nintendo DS version received positive assessments for its gameplay variety and visuals, but was met with criticism for its controls. Despite this reception, the game was nominated for three awards.
Gameplay.
"Crash of the Titans" is a beat-em-up game with platforming aspects in which the player controls Crash Bandicoot, whose main objective is to rescue his sister, Coco, and save his home, the Wumpa Island, from being destroyed by the main antagonist's gigantic robot. The player's first goal is to rescue the sentient mask Aku Aku, who gives the player basic instructions, shields Crash from enemy attacks, and can be used as a board to help Crash traverse slippery terrain. From there, each level (known as an "episode") asks players to complete fights against large groups of enemies or simply progress through the episode.
Crash starts the game with four lives. The length of each of Crash's lives is tied to his health meter, which decreases whenever Crash is damaged from enemy attacks or falls down a bottomless pit. The player can replenish Crash's health meter by collecting Wumpa Fruit. Each time the health meter is fully depleted, Crash loses a life. However, the player can gain an additional life for Crash by collecting 25,000 units of the magical substance Mojo or by collecting a rare type of Golden Wumpa Fruit. After the last life is lost, the player can continue playing by restarting the current episode.
Each episode contains a portal leading to a simple mini-game arena, where the player must accomplish a task in a set time. Generally the task involves collecting a specified quantity of Mojo, jacking a titan and using its abilities, or simply defeating a select number of enemies. At the end of each episode, the player earns a rank of a bronze, silver, or gold voodoo doll; the rank can be improved by defeating a set number of minions, destroying three robotic toilets or inflicting a minimum number of consecutive hits in combat. All three tasks must be accomplished in an episode if a gold voodoo doll is to be obtained for that episode. Hidden voodoo dolls unlock concept art packages for each episode.
The Nintendo DS version of "Crash of the Titans" contains similar gameplay to that of previous "Crash" installments. The game takes place on four islands, each with two levels and a boss. When a boss is defeated, a new island is unlocked. Each island has its own "Pachinko board" where players can win "on-demand items"; items that can be used to restore health, provide temporary invincibility, and set off Nitro explosions among other things. Additional content can also be won at these Pachinko boards, such as gallery art, cheats and a large quantity of Mojo.
Combat.
Whereas the previous games featured Crash spinning into or jumping on an enemy to attack, "Crash of the Titans" gives him more options for attack. Early in the game, Crash has a light-powered attack and a heavy-powered attack and can also block, dodge or break an enemy's block. When he defeats an enemy or destroys an object, a magical substance known as Mojo is released. When Crash collects enough Mojo, he will earn either an ability upgrade or a new move, such as the Norris Roundhouse or the Triple Dragon. His classic spin attack, named "Old Skool", is an unlockable move, along with an aerial variant that allows Crash to float over chasms.
While small minions require only a single combo attack for Crash to defeat, larger enemies, known as "Titans", require more effort to subdue. Each of the fifteen unique Titans in the game possess a star meter that indicates how close they are to being stunned. The meter rises when Crash starts attacking a Titan, and depletes when he stops. When it is full, the Titan is stunned and susceptible to "jacking", meaning Crash can mount the creature and control it. While controlled by the player, the Titan possesses a similar moveset to Crash, although some jacked Titans can shoot projectiles. Besides greater health, the Titans controlled by Crash have a purple Titan Meter. When this meter is full, players can make the Titan unleash a special attack, which fully drains the meter in the process.
A Titan's durability depends on its size; larger Titans will take more effort to defeat than others and a few are immune to Crash's attacks. To defeat them, Crash has to jack a smaller Titan to fight them. On defeating the larger Titan, he can dismount the Titan he previously jacked and directly jack the larger Titan. The dismounted Titan will then be destroyed.
Co-operative play.
A player using a second controller can join the game at any time in the form of a white-furred version of Crash known as "Carbon Crash". The second player appears in the first player's backpack, and can usually enter or exit the pack. However, the second player has to stay in the backpack if the first player is in mid-air or climbing a wall. This method of play is useful for overpowering enemies and collecting Mojo faster. There are two modes of co-op play; in "Leapfrog Mode", the players swap control each time the front player jumps, swings, or slides, while in "Piggyback Mode", each player is equipped with their own backpack and can hide in the other player's backpack if the action becomes too intense, such as when jumping over a chasm.
Plot.
Setting.
The setting of "Crash of the Titans" features twenty levels. Each level is referred to as an "episode", and each has a distinctive subtitle that is usually a punning reference to popular culture (such as "The Blizzard of Claws"). Like the first "Crash Bandicoot" game, episodes must be played in order, although the player can replay any episode that has been completed. The game moves through five major themes taking place on Crash's homeland, the Wumpa Islands. The story starts in the jungle near Crash's residence and leads to an ancient temple. Later in the game, Crash travels through a wood-cutting and mining area and a land flowing with lava that features giant steel mosquitoes sucking minerals out of the ground. The next few episodes take place on an artillery-bombarded beach, where Crash infiltrates Doctor N. Gin's missile factory, which resembles the Statue of Liberty. The penultimate area is a gigantic tree located in the middle of the island. This tree holds up an entire house owned by Uka Uka, one of the major antagonists of the series. The final moments of the game take place in the antagonist's Liberace-style lair, and finally inside the Doominator.
Characters.
Nine characters from previous "Crash Bandicoot" titles star in the home console version of "Crash of the Titans", all of whom were redesigned with a "punk" aesthetic that is distinct from other and Japanese video game characters. The protagonist of the game, Crash Bandicoot, is a bandicoot who must defeat the main antagonist Doctor Neo Cortex and use the Titans against each other while collecting Mojo to upgrade his fighting techniques. Aiding Crash is Aku Aku, an ancient wooden mask who acts as a shield, a skateboard, and a weapon. He can also help Crash jack Titans. Crash's other two allies are his genius younger sister Coco Bandicoot and his muscular friend, Crunch Bandicoot, who is absent in the Nintendo DS version.
Doctor Neo Cortex is a mad scientist who captures Coco and Aku Aku and wants to use stolen Mojo to create an army of mutants. Uka Uka, who is also absent in the Nintendo DS version, is behind Cortex's plot for world domination; after tiring of Cortex's incompetence, Uka replaces him with his cyborg niece, Nina Cortex. Aiding the Cortexes are Doctor N. Gin, who is Cortex's hysterical right-hand man, and Tiny Tiger. Dingodile, another minion of Cortex, exclusively appears in the DS and Game Boy Advance versions of "Crash of the Titans" as a boss character. Aiding the villains are a number of small fodder enemies that attempt to hinder Crash in his journey. Each fodder is affiliated with a certain villain in the game. The first fodders encountered are Neo Cortex's Ratnicians, which appear as bipedal, chihuahua-like animals dressed as laboratory researchers. These characters appear in the first four episodes of the game, and are replaced by other enemies as the game progresses. The later enemies include Tiny Tiger's Southern-accented Koo-alas, Doctor N. Gin's monkey wrench-wielding Doom Monkeys, Uka Uka's spear-chucking Voodoo Bunnies, and Nina Cortex's Brat Girls. Radical Entertainment sought to give these minor characters personalities by giving them a large number of distinctive quotations.
Story.
In the beginning of the game, Crash aids Coco with a butter-recycling device. When Dr. Cortex arrives, not only he captures Aku Aku and Coco, but encases Crunch in ice. Crash throws Coco's machine at Cortex's airship, severing the chain holding Aku Aku's cage, which causes the cage to fall into the nearby forest. After Crash rescues Aku Aku, they discover that Cortex and Uka Uka are stealing Mojo from a nearby temple and decide to stop them. On reaching the temple, Cortex reveals his plot to use the stolen Mojo to create an army of loyal mutants, which will be used to build a robot known as the Doominator, that will crush the Wumpa Islands and take over the world. After failing to defeat Crash with his Yuktopus cyborg, Cortex boasts that Crash will never find his base and flies off, leaving Crash and Aku Aku to follow him.
At Cortex's base, Uka Uka derides Cortex for failing to destroy Crash and replaces Cortex with his niece, Nina Cortex, despite protests from Neo, N. Gin and Tiny Tiger. Nina has Coco brainwashed and makes her participate in the construction of the Doominator. Throughout the course of the game, Crash and Aku Aku interrogate Tiny Tiger, Doctor N. Gin and Uka Uka on the whereabouts of Coco. When they confront Nina inside the Doominator robot, she summons her Arachnina cyborg and fights Crash. Crash eventually destroys the robot, liberating Coco and disabling the Doominator. The Doominator collapses and barely misses the Bandicoot home (and Crunch), sparing much of Wumpa Island. Escaping from the collapsed Doominator, Cortex praises Nina for betraying him, and promises to be more evil in the near future. The Bandicoots decide that it is time for celebration, leading Crash to shout his first word in the series and the object of their celebration: pancakes.
The DS version of the game largely follows the story of the home console versions, but with minor alterations such as Nina Cortex having a greater role and the inclusion of Dingodile. Near the end of the game, Nina teams up with Crash to stop Doctor Cortex and his dancing "CortexBot". The Game Boy Advance version also includes Dingodile, some plot differences, such as the Arachnina (referred to by its old name, "Spiderbot") not being the last boss, and Cortex being reinstated after Nina's defeat in the N. Trapment Island.
Development.
Development on "Crash of the Titans" began after the completion of "Crash Tag Team Racing". The graphics of the Wii version of the game was one of Radical Entertainment's main focuses in the game's development, with Radical stating that the Wii has "a lot of horsepower under the hood" and expressing their desire to make full use of it. They also considered implementing a feature to connect the Wii to DS during gameplay, but stopped due to technical issues and time. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 version got a few extra months of development time to improve its graphics before setting a final release date.
While the game was being developed, the title's main character, Crash Bandicoot, became the new mascot of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's "School and Youth" programs in an effort to promote the battle against blood cancer. In a bid to further promote the game, a Hummer (with a Wii inside) was painted with imagery from the game and displayed at the Annual Balloon Fiesta in Bristol, United Kingdom. A "Monster Edition" of the game was released exclusively in Europe on October 12, 2007 for the PlayStation 2. This special edition of the game features "Making-of" videos, water-on tattoos, game hints, a cheat code list, and the game's E3 and theatrical trailers in multiple languages. Due to its "mild cartoon violence and language", the game received a PG rating from the BBFC.
Music.
Unlike "Crash Tag Team Racing", Radical did not hire the composer of the music in the previous "Crash" games, the a cappella band Spiralmouth whose members Rebecca Kneubuhl and Gabriel Mann left to compose musical pieces to ' and ' from Crash's companion franchise "Spyro the Dragon", to write the music for "Crash of the Titans". Instead, they assigned the job to their in-house composer Marc Baril, who took Spiralmouth's work on the previous games as references for "Crash of the Titans". Radical Entertainment has expressed its pride with some of the music featured in the game, such as Doctor N. Gin's polka theme. A 32-track soundtrack was made available on the iTunes Music Store on December 18, 2007. The music in the Nintendo DS version of the game was created by Nathaniel Papadakis.
Voice cast.
To avoid repetitive audio, "Crash of the Titans" features more than 7,000 lines of dialogue, many of which contain references to popular culture, such as the film "Brokeback Mountain". To achieve a natural feel for their dialogue, the voice actors performed all their lines three times. Many of the voice actors from "Crash Tag Team Racing" reprised their roles, including Jess Harnell as Crash Bandicoot and Lex Lang as Doctor Neo Cortex. Characters who were regulars in the series but did not appear in "Crash Tag Team Racing" were given new voice actors for "Crash of the Titans". These replacements include Greg Eagles as Aku Aku, Chris Williams as Tiny Tiger, and John DiMaggio as Uka Uka. The DS version features full voice acting for cutscenes and in-game elements by some of the same voice actors from the home console version of the game, though some of the voice actors were substituted, such as Debi Derryberry in the role of Coco Bandicoot, and Nolan North in the role of N. Gin. Dingodile, who appears only in the DS and GBA versions, is voiced by Nolan North.
To make enemies memorable on their own; Radical Entertainment scripted conversations between the enemy characters that can be overheard as the player approaches. Several voice actors provide the audio for the small enemies, including Tom Kenny from Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob SquarePants". Adding to the game's numerous pop-culture references, the voices and mannerisms of some of the characters are based upon those of real people, including Mike Tyson, Mr. T, Jerry Lewis, and Peter Lorre.
Reception.
"Crash of the Titans" received mixed reviews upon its release. Critics felt that the game's combat, despite the jacking mechanic adding a unique flavor to the gameplay, quickly became repetitive due to the game's lack of puzzles and exploration. They added that the combat was unbalanced by an abundance of enemy characters with inconsistent AI. Brian Rowe of Game Revolution and Ryan Davis of GameSpot deemed the platforming easy and predictable, and Davis felt that the game lacked a distinct personality, saying that "you could swap Crash out for any number of other cartoony platforming heroes and not really know the difference". The game's co-op mode was considered to be enjoyable, though Rowe found the Leapfrog mode to be "wholly disorienting", and Matt Keller of PALGN deemed the multiplayer mode to be superfluous and not well-implemented. Mike Thomsen of Nintendo World Report observed a slight lag in some of the Wii version's motion controls, which he said highlighted the fact that not all of the game's control's were specifically calibrated to take advantage of the Wii Remote. The camera was criticized for its lack of adjustability, which would often result in attacks by enemy characters outside of the player's range of vision.
The visuals were generally assessed positively. Thomsen complimented the game's "wacky and detailed" art direction, elaborating that "The game looks like a kind of Tim Burton tropical fantasy with looping tendrils and exaggerated angles crammed into the game's twenty-some levels". Davis considered the Xbox 360 version to have the best visuals based on its textures, lighting and particle effects, and added that while the PS2 and Wii versions were similar in presentation, he opined that the Wii version had better particle effects and looked better on a high-definition display. Periera and Michael Knutson of GameZone commended the character models and animations as sharp and well-done, but considered the environments to be bland, although Periera was impressed by the levels' focal points. Dakota Grabowski, also of GameZone, complimented the environmental textures and lighting, but admitted to not having been won over by the character redesigns, and said that "a lot of the up-close environments look dismal". Keller considered the character models and animation to be the most detailed in the series, and commended the color palette and large levels. Rowe, while lamenting the linearity of the levels, praised the color and liveliness of the settings. The motion blur effects added to Crash in the Xbox 360 version were derided as excessive.
The audio was met with mixed responses, though reactions to the voice acting and humor were mostly positive. Thomsen praised the game's "kooky Danny Elfman-esque" score, exaggerated voice-acting, sophisticated writing and variety of enemy voice lines. Davis and Grabowski felt that the voice cast was strong and lent a good amount of humor to the game. Periera acknowledged the dialogue of the minion characters as funny but dated. Rowe claimed that the game "might be the first script since "Ratchet & Clank" that made me laugh out loud", but considered Greg Eagles' performance as Aku Aku to be a "gratingly poor" impersonation of "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" character Frylock. Knutson and Keller dismissed the soundtrack as forgettable and criticized the voice-acting as annoying; Keller elaborated that "Crash, who is supposed to be a deranged bandicoot, sounds more like a confused baby. Other characters such as Coco have really annoying voices that make you want to take a power drill to your temple to make the pain stop. The only voices that have any merit are the smaller creatures in the first five levels, who sound a lot like Jerry Lewis from "The Nutty Professor"".
In Australia, "Crash of the Titans" was the second highest-selling game in its first week below "Halo 3". The game was not as successful in the United Kingdom, where the PS2 version of the game debuted at #32 in the sales charts. The game made £3.35 million in the UK by the end of 2007.
"Crash of the Titans" was a nominee in the Writers Guild of America's inaugural video game writing awards, competing against "Dead Head Fred", "The Simpsons Game", "The Witcher" and "World in Conflict"; "Dead Head Fred" won the award. "Crash of the Titans" was also selected as a nominee in the "Best Sound Design" and "Best Character" categories of the Second Annual Elan Awards. It lost both awards to "Skate" and "Mass Effect"'s Commander Shepard respectively.
Nintendo DS version.
Reception to the Nintendo DS version of "Crash of the Titans" was also mixed, but slightly more favorable than the console versions. Craig Harris of IGN considered the game to be "a fantastic apology for "Crash Boom Bang!"" and praised Crash's new design as well as the game's visuals, level design and gameplay variety, but felt that the combat and the incorporation of some touch screen elements were clunky. Zachary Miller of Nintendo World Report commended the fast-paced and interesting gameplay and colorful and distinct graphics, but felt that the environments and enemy types blended together, and while he was fairly impressed with the voice-acting, he was critical of the storyline and inclusion of a laugh track. Frank Provo of GameSpot commended the gameplay variety granted by the jacking mechanic and slaloming segments, and was impressed by the graphics, which provided a "slick and upbeat" presentation, but he lamented the game's short length. Louis Bedigian of GameZone considered the basic gameplay and graphics to be comparable to the original PlayStation games, but said that the frequent amount of enemies caused the gameplay to become repetitive, deemed the touchscreen controls unwieldy and unnecessary, and lambasted the voice-acting as childish.