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[VLP] Soundtrack of my strife - Let's decompose Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex!
theenglishman
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi there! This is my second LP (and my first VLP) which I will be working on alongside Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. This one of my least favourite GameCube games ever, because it was supposed to be an awesome sequel to a great PlayStation series and also because the GCN version was just THAT MUCH WORSE than the PS2 and Xbox versions.
Hi! I'm one of three people in the world that doesn't know what Crash Bandicoot is. Please enlighten me!
Crash Bandicoot is an anthropomorphic marsupial who starred in a series of platforming games that were supposed to finally kill the dominance that Mario had on the genre in the mid-1990's. Nintendo had Mario, Sega had Sonic and Sony had Crash. The Crash games were developed by upstart Sony second-party studio Naughty Dog, who had a grand total of ten staff when they began work on the first Crash game. That game had a similar design to Donkey Kong Country, except in 3D with occasional switches to a 2D perspective. There were 30 levels, and one way to get through each, with hidden gems and other secrets scattered throughout the level.
The second Crash game (and the best in my opinion) set out the formula for the rest: you could choose from any one of five levels at a time, and to beat a level you not only had to go through the level but also collect that level's purple crystal. The third Crash game honed the formula to perfection. Then came a brilliant kart racer and a passable Mario Party clone.
Which brings me to Wrath of Cortex.
Around 2000, Naughty Dog were bought out by Sony and doomed to create Playstation 2 and 3 games for the rest of their lives (actually, they produced some great titles like Jak and Daxter and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune), and because Vivendi Universal Games had exclusive publishing rights, Naughty Dog lost the Crash license along with it. Vivendi licensed development of the next Crash game to Traveller's Tales (who would later be known for the Lego Star Wars games). Wrath of Cortex was initially released as a PlayStation 2 exclusive on October 29th, 2001 in North America. Of course, that exclusivity didn't last, and it was ported to the Xbox in April of 2002. Eurocom, who had previously worked on Crash Bash, handled the GameCube port and released it six months after the Xbox version. Vicarious Visions also made two surprisingly good-quality Crash games for the Game Boy Advance and a bunch of crappy crossover titles with Spyro the Dragon, of all things.
So what makes Wrath of Cortex different from other Crash titles before it?
You mean aside from a lack of quality? There are quite a few things actually:
- Aku Aku masks can now be brought into time trials, which is very helpful for getting platinum relic times.
- Coco now has fully-fledged platforming levels instead of just the jetski/tiger/plane stuff she had in Crash 3.
- Ice physics have been changed so that jumping is no longer slowed down by your movement on ice. This can be very confusing.
- Instead of fighting five individual bosses, you'll always be fighting Crunch Bandicoot wearing a different Elemental mask each time. The fifth and final boss predictably combines the powers of all four Elemental masks.
- One additional move has been added to Crash's repertoire, a tiptoe move that lets him walk across Nitro crates unharmed (which, as you'll see in the LP, is a completely worthless addition)
- Platinum relic times are displayed once you collect a gold relic on a particular level, unlike Crash 3 where platinum relics were secret.
- The Bazooka is now actually required in one section of the endgame. Shocking, I know.
- There are more controllable (in theory) vehicles this time around, like a jeep, mech suit and minecart.
- While there are levels completely devoted to vehicles, some levels are split into vehicle and platforming parts, something you didn't see in the last few games.
Why is the GameCube version so bad if the developers had almost a year to fix the issues in the PlayStation 2 version?
It's simple: lazy development and poor execution. The level design itself isn't overly bad, but the controls, graphics, framerate and camera are. Coco's levels in particular are an incredible chore because her landing physics just aren't what they should be, and the jeep's handling makes the Mako look perfectly managable by comparison. Eurocom DID manage to improve the loading times over the PS2 version (though they're still really long) but in its place we have graphics that are slightly above Nintendo 64 quality and pop-in that would make Star Fox on the SNES blush.
What's your LP gimmick?
Honestly and truly, I fucking HATE the music in this game. So, with the exception of the opening cutscene (which I can't do anything about), I'm turning off the in-game music and replacing it with music from other, better games, including other Crash Bandicoot games I might add. I'll also make this a 100% run with a platinum relic time-trial montage to follow once I beat the rest of the game.
If you have suggestions for what music to play in which level, go right ahead, but keep in mind that your selection is not guaranteed; I am treating them as suggestions, not outright requests. And for God's sake put it in a spoiler tag in case your suggestion IS used and I don't want to spoil the unpredictability of the music.
Can I play along with you?
I wouldn't recommend it, unless you have the Xbox version. If you have a 360, WoC is also available as an Xbox Original.
Can I guest on one of your episodes?
Unfornuately, because there will be no voiceovers, there will be no guests. Sorry.
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theenglishman on
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And my god you was right about the music being down right atrocious.
Well my theory is that if I talked, that would drown out the music, thus rendering the one redeeming feature of my LP useless :P