Crash Bash

Review

by Tom Zjaba

With the success of Mario Party, it was only a matter of time before Crash Bandicoot received his own party game. The popular bandicoot brings along all of his friends into this series of events that can be enjoyed by one to four players.

Unlike Mario Party, Crash Bash does not have a game board. The game should be applauded for this, since it is always refreshing to see a little originality. Crash Bash is simply a series of different mini-games that need to be completed in order to move on to the next level.

The mini-games themselves are all very simple, with some being rehashes of classic videogames, and others taking gameplay elements from previous Crash Bandicoot games. The first mini-game, "Ballistix," is pretty close to the Atari classic Warlords. But whereas Warlords had you destroying the bricks of other castles, this game has you trying to hit a ball into your opponents' goals. Warlords is a great game, and if you're going to borrow, you should borrow from the best.

"Pogo Pandemonium" is probably what a party game with Q*bert would have looked like. Each character hops around on a pogo stick, turning blocks different colors. Much like Go or Othello, it is the person with the most blocks of their color at the end that wins. There is some strategy involved in this game, and it can be quite wild when things really get going.

"Tank Wars" is a souped-up version of the Atari 2600 game Combat. You move your tank through a maze and take out the other tanks. One nice feature this version has that the original Combat did not is four-player mode. "Crate Crush" takes the crate-throwing and smashing from the Crash series and turns it into a mini-game. The idea is to make all the other opponents lose all their health by hitting them with regular, TNT and nitro crates.

Crash Bash offers a few different modes to keep things interesting. There is the Adventure Mode for one to two players, where the goal is to finish all the different mini-games at different skill levels, as well as some boss levels. The Battle Mode allows you to play the mini-games in head to head, VS. and team modes. In Tournament mode, points are kept for each event.

One drawback is that besides Crash and Dr. Neo Cortex, no one except the most diehard fan would know most the of the game's other characters. Some were minor characters in the Crash series, so there is the identity problem. Yet the biggest fault is that most of the games are simplistic and become tiresome. Even on the higher levels, there is little difference in some of the games. Also, if you're not playing against someone else, the game isn't much fun. It is really made to be a party game, and solo play is not exciting.

On the plus side, the mini-games are all easy to understand and fun for a group of friends or family. Since the action is comical, it can be enjoyed by all ages, and even young children can easily grasp the simplicity of the games. There are also some neat little things that pop up in the games that keep them from getting too dull and help to liven things up. In all, Crash Bash offers enough gameplay to warrant a purchase for someone who is looking for a good family game or a fun party game. Solo players may want to avoid it.