#N Sane Trilogy review
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the beautiful person's journal - #9: the twists and turns of the caddy show and the gradual rejection of formulas
the caddy show (january 18th, 2017 - december 12th, 2019)
strap in, folks. this is going to be a long and convoluted one. but i never realized until now just HOW much i had to say about this show.
the month is january 2017. caddy had just moved to his current house, he's now going by jim, and the last pre-2016 side show - current quickies - has just been axed. gone were the days of gimmicky characters and review methods...well, at least for shows that weren't the caddicarus show.
in this update video, the ultimate side show replacement - the caddy show - was announced to be a variety show that would cover just about anything. modern game reviews, drum covers, video game event vlogs, reactions, shitposts, rants, discussions, the whole shebang. caddy's film fridays (soon to be rebranded as cinemaggots) would still serve as an outlet for film reviews - with the exception of one caddy episode that covered a quiet place.
the caddy show was really, truly the very first time the channel had ever seen a central modern game review series with no gimmicks or formulas. the closest thing there was to a formula was the "spoilers, alright? ok, noice" in every video, but that was mostly it. it was the only modern review series from 2017 to 2019 and it covered all kinds of modern games.
series overview
the show began the wednesday after it was announced, debuting with a review of the last guardian. next week's episode saw caddy attending a press event for the nintendo switch. if this event had occurred before this show was introduced, caddy probably would've tried to implement a video based on it into the caddicarus show, or current quickies. because of the way the channel was run at this time, every single video uploaded had to be a part of some kind of show, which limited video ideas and possibilities. the caddy show opened up so many new possibilities, such as videos like this.
another example of the benefit of this show is the mr. youtube videos, two satirical videos created in september 2016. these videos didn't really fit into any kind of format, but they were billed as caddicarus show episodes and put into the show's playlist. by january 2017, they were rebranded into caddy show episodes, with caddicarus show branding being stripped from them.
the show also had rant/discussion videos that discussed new gaming topics or anything else, such as the one about the n. sane trilogy where caddy expressed his worries about the game's graphics. obviously, that one didn't age well. there was also the one where he discussed those weird bootleg kids' peppa pig videos, and how an article about them conveniently dropped around the time he released the caddicarus episode about the show.
drum covers were moved to the main channel with this series. before this, there were only 3 drum covers ever posted, and all of them were on the second channel. but 2017 saw a blossoming in the number of drum covers posted due to this series.
strangely, not all of the episodes of the series were kept online. a couple of the discussion videos - the ones on caddy jumping off the hype train, and the playstation classic wish list - were privated in october 2021.
the caddy show also had sponsored videos, most of which were produced through 2017 and 2019, and none of which are public anymore. there were videos on portal knights, dreadnought, crossout, an acer predator laptop, oculus rift... i haven't listed one, and oh boy i'll get into that one later.
unfortunately, i couldn't find a working capture for the crossout vid. :(
he also did a few shitposts, a couple of them being about metal gear survive and the spyro reignited trilogy. unfortunately jim didn't unlist the original "pain" video, which was the "crash 1, i did it, crash 2, i did it, crash 3, i did it" video. but i got a capture here! there was also one on the nightmare creatures remake.
there's also a lorne lanning interview from 2017, which was strangely unlisted along with the 2014 interview...
branding/graphic design history
so for the first 9 months of the show, the thumbnails and titles of all the videos had the same format:
the thumbnails all had the caddicarus show's grunge background (albeit in grayscale), BUT there was a different thumbnail avatar specifically made for this show.
all the titles were "(subject of the video) - caddy". simple enough, right? well, this caused a lot of confusion among viewers. some viewers actually mistook these for caddicarus episodes and had assumed that the caddicarus show was going away and this new format was its replacement...no joke lol.
so, by september 2017...the entire "caddy" branding was removed from the channel. the videos still used the show's intro, but there was no longer a singular playlist titled "the caddy show", and jim no longer referred to the show as being called "caddy". jim began to start the videos by saying "hey everyone, caddy here"...which was weird af at the time.
"caddy" was removed from all the video titles and all the thumbnails were changed. there were now 3 playlists made up of episodes for this series - "NEW GAME REVIEWS" for the review episodes, which there were most of; "DRUM COVERS", for, you guessed it, drum covers; and "ETC" for everything else. and yes, those quotes were actually in the playlist titles. that same day, the caddicarus show's and cinemaggots' playlist titles were also capitalized and had quotes added to them. 15-year-old me did a humorous commentary on this back when it happened.
the playlists weren't the only instances of loud, all-caps yelling being added to the caddica-sphere. the titles of all the reviews were changed, and...hoo boy.
just by looking through some of these, you can tell that these stirred up a bit of...controversy in the fanbase. i was also pretty critical of this title format, and i'd roll my eyes with every new review that dropped. if you weren't around during this period, this was a time where the channel was in stagnation and in dire need of support. the channel was running almost exclusively off of patreon donations, and jim needed to do all he could to boost engagement...even if that meant changing all his titles to all-caps eye-catching clickbait.
off the top of my head, i can think of a couple issues that sprung up with this title format. one is pictured above - the shadow of the colossus review. caddy adores that game, but he decided to name the video "RANT OF THE RANTOSSUS". the word "rant" is generally considered to have a negative connotation. when someone is "ranting" about something, they are usually complaining about that thing. so when jim named his video that, there were fans that were reasonably confused. caddy defended this, saying "oh, this is a positive rant!" but like...idk dude. i always saw that title as being crappy SEO.
and then there was the infamous god of war review. posted on the caddicarus show's 6th anniversary, the video was originally titled "GOD OF DISAPPOINTMENT". now, there was nothing wrong with this video...well, at least from what i remember of it. i've not played the god of war games personally, but there is nothing wrong with giving a 6/10 score to anything, no matter how acclaimed or panned that piece of media is. and god of war 2018 was one of the most praised games ever when it came out. so lots of fans didn't take kindly to this video, or its title. caddy would eventually change the title to "IS IT REALLY 10/10?" before ditching this title format altogether by next month.
so with the trashing of these titles, we had to give up something else...
...what if i told you that the thumbnails pictured above didn't always have googly eyes?
on one night in june of 2018, 16-year-old mel noticed something strange when looking on jim's channel. first of all, i saw that the modern game review series had its awful all-caps titles gone, and that it was now called "CADDY REVIEWS". the "ETC" videos also no longer had all-caps titles...but they now all had entirely low-caps titles, which made them look very cryptic. (i.e. "I'M NOT SURE ABOUT CRASH ON PS4" became "i'm not sure about crash on ps4".)
but i looked a little closer...
one of the modern game reviews had googly eyes on the thumbnail, and i was like..."that wasn't there before..."
so i refreshed...and more googly eyes showed up.
panicked, i scrambled over to the playlist...and there were more.
i refreshed again. and there were even MORE.
needless to say, i lost my mind.
about a few minutes after i yelled about it on wattpad, caddy posted this tweet...
...and i proceeded to laugh my ass off. this man, who had just been utilizing these SEO-attention-grabbing-clickbait-ass video titles for 9 months, was now once again firing gunshots into the air, keeping property values low. caddicarus truly is the [tumblr] of personality-based video review channels.
a couple months later, with the debut of its 11th season, jetpackbraggin began doing thumbnails for the caddicarus show. these thumbnails initially didn't have borders, akin to the 2020 reboot. but about a few weeks in, the season 11 thumbnails so far were actually given red borders - which is definitely not a color that gives caddicarus vibes, if you ask me.
the modern game reviews were given blue borders. this didn't last for very long, as by the next week, jim would eventually settle on the blue borders for TCS that would last until the end of 2019, and modern game reviews were given the purple border that we see today.
after jetpackbraggin began drawing the TCS thumbnails, the caddy show - pretty much just referred to as "bonus videos" at this point - was still using the same thumbnail avatar...at least until the last episode. the last episode of the series - posted in march 2019 - was a drum cover of the tetris theme, and it was the only episode that ever used JPB's thumbnail drawing for drum covers...it was also the first thumbnail since 2017 to have the "caddy" logo on it, and the only drum cover to have the purple border on the thumbnail. it seemed like jim wanted to do more things with this show, given its updated thumbnail format, but he just ended up integrating most of it into the caddicarus show.
the fall...and rise...and fall again
by 2019, the caddicarus channel was back to one video a week - that one video being the caddicarus show, and the caddicarus show only. it began covering more and more modern games. drum covers were out the window, as his work became busier, and mainline videos kept getting longer and more elaborate. by may, we were seeing caddicarus episodes chronicling video game press events - episodes that previously would've been caddy episodes. basically, TCS was performing all of the functions of the caddy show, because caddy wanted to invest in the main series the most. he was drifting away from having other "shows" on the channel, as that was stressing him out. waits between videos became longer...and "longer" back then meant 2 weeks to a month. CRAZY shit for the time.
so basically, the show went out with a badass tetris drum cover, and then came the buildup to the channel's reset!
oh wait...the PUBG video...
in may 2019, caddy posted a sponsored video for PUBG mobile. it had a pretty bad like/dislike ratio. the comments were divided. he endorsed lootboxes. it was...it was a mess. he unlisted it in 2021, along with all the other sponsored videos.
and that was the last we heard from the caddy show...no more side shows...just the last of the original caddicarus show until the 2020 reboot! well gee, this sure was a long entry. for the next entry, we'll be covering the second chann-
OH CHRIST, REALLY???
so a few months after the PUBG video, crash team racing: nitro fueled had a bit of a fiasco with microtransactions. caddy was so angered by this, he decided to retool the caddy show into a rant series. this series would cover gaming news and other random things in culture.
of course, if you scroll through his mid-late 2019 videos you'll notice these videos aren't there. every single rant was unlisted, along with the series' dedicated playlist. one way you can get to them is through my unlisted videos playlist.
these 8 rant videos were produced between august and december 2019, and were produced during the peak of the channel's recession. caddy himself wasn't in the best mental state as well. these videos had thumbnails and titles of the clickbait-y variety, with the thumbnails featuring caddy's actual (non-negative filtered) face - something that was rare before this series. and that wasn't just the case for this series - you can identify season 13 caddicarus show episodes by the thumbnails that feature caddy's actual face (with the exceptions of the final 2 episodes on death stranding and jedi fallen order - it seems like these thumbnails were so poorly received that cartoon caddy returned for the very end of the original series). the definitely-not-reminiscent-of-another-gaming-youtuber upside-down profile pic was also introduced with this series, along with the banner featuring caddy's screaming face.
other than CTR microtransactions, he discussed things like the sans nintendo direct, playstation state of play, COPPA, the PS5 dev kit...your typical late 2019 stuff. interestingly, he discussed the controversy behind the IT part 2 poster, and it was strangely political for a video from this channel. basically, these videos were caddy's twitter rants put into video form - there were discussions from fans who were worried that the channel could possibly become strictly a political/game news rant channel filled to the brim with clickbait and horrid fans. i had the thought before that the channel would've become this had the caddicarus show not been retooled. and i thank the lords above every single day that didn't happen.
these videos didn't do astoundingly well, apart from the CTR rants - which got about 600k - 700k views. but other than that, the videos did alright. they were mostly well-received, but there were also fans who had concerns about the channel's future, as i mentioned above. and there were others who just saw it as his lowest form of content. but of course, you have to remember that this was a very taxing time in the channel's history when caddy wasn't doing great mentally and when he was struggling to pay rent.
and so, to FINALLY end off the entry, the last episode of the rant series aired on december 12th, 2019. after that was the caddicarus episode on jedi fallen order, and...with 2020 came the reset!
these videos were all privated in october 2021, but then unlisted in september 2022 - i guess if caddy couldn't private the caddicarus episodes, he could private these to get rid of the memories of that era of the channel.
and THAT was the history of the caddy show. there were so many twists and turns...and i had no idea this would be as long as it was. geez.
for the next entry, i'll be talking about the second channel's history, and it shouldn't go for as long as this one did.
take care! 💜
#caddicarus#the caddicarus show#the BPJ#the beautiful person's journal#hidden block#hiddenblock#jim caddick
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Actually my main memory of Crash before I knew Crash is that once on Good Game Spawn Point they reviewed what I can only assume was N Sane Trilogy and Bajo was like "but why is Coco carrying around her laptop. Very irresponsible." And I laughed so hard I cried
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Today is the 6th year anniversary of Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy! (PlayStation 4 Release, 5 years since Multiplatform Release)
Today, according to the Eastern Standard Timezone, is the anniversary for trio remakes of the original trilogy for Crash Bandicoot, dubbed “Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy”, developed by Vicarious Visions, it was hyped up tremendously from its E3 2016 announcement, PSX 2016 reveal, and it’s release day on June 30, 2017, it received positive reviews despite some complaints over the jumping,…
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CTR: Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled (2019) Review
[This review is a continuation of my Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy review. Please read that (and by extension my whole Crash Bandicoot review saga) first.]
In 2019, Activision Blizzard released Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled, a from-the-ground-up remake of Crash’s racing title. I have mixed feelings about this remake. On one hand, I think it’s great and it’s an objective improvement over the original. On the other hand, I have big issues with it. Both game design issues and moral issues. Let’s just jump into the comparison.
Firstly, the obvious: graphics. While I had my issues with the artstyle in N. Sane Trilogy, I don’t have them here. CTR barely has you look at your character so your attention is fully focused on the environments you’re racing through, and I think they look incredible. This game can look stunning across the board. Lots of very pretty levels. Coco Park is probably my favorite in terms of visuals. However, there’s a major issue with the graphics, and that’s the performance. As I've mentioned earlier, this game only runs 30 FPS on all consoles, even the PS4 Pro and the PS5 with no next gen update on the horizon. The resolution is decent at least, on PS5 anyway. On Nintendo Switch, the game is locked to an ugly 720p, even docked. Honestly, this is unacceptable. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe looks just as pretty as this game and it runs a crystal clear 1080p and a buttery smooth 60fps on Switch. The fact Crash can’t even manage 60 on PS5 is pathetic. What makes it worse is that Nitro Fueled never got a PC release. So that means that not only is there no official way to play the game on PC, but there’s also no official way to play the game with a decent frame rate. However, that’s not to say there’s no way to play the game at 60fps. Since this game is on Switch, it can be emulated with Yuzu, and it runs flawlessly. On Yuzu, you can upscale the game to 1440p and beyond and you can also apply a simple 60fps patch. Now you can play the game with some decent visuals. You are held back by the Switch’s inherent visual drawbacks, but it’s worth it for the frame rate. If a fan can get this game running at 60fps, then they have no excuse.
Well graphics aside, how well does the gameplay hold up? The gameplay on the whole is mostly unchanged. There are subtle downgrades though, mainly to jumps. It’s simultaneously harder to land high jumps due to awkward collisions and easier to overshoot jumps due to their new momentum physics. There are other changes too, but they’re more subtle. Of course, none of the tracks were redesigned with the new physics changes in mind, so it simply plays worse, much like the N. Sane Trilogy. However, I don’t think it’s a game ruiner here like it was in Crash 1. These changes are, like I said, subtle. They’re only really noticeable if you compare the games back to back. So while Nitro Fueled does have worse gameplay, it’s barely noticeable so it's not a deal breaker.
Besides, unlike N. Sane Trilogy, Nitro Fueled is far more than just the same game again with prettier graphics and worse gameplay. The N. Sane Trilogy only had one original thing in the whole game, being a post launch level. Nitro Fueled is jam packed with an insane amount of new content. We have an absolutely massive roster with 56 playable characters, all of which having plenty of unique skins. We also have an insane number of kart parts. Between bodies, tires, paint jobs, and stickers the amount of unique kart combinations is limitless. We have 40 tracks, all of which having their own time trials with different time crate placements and the new ring challenge mode with various ring placements. We also have battle mode, which itself has a good handful of maps with a bunch of different battle modes. They even remade all of the content from Crash Nitro Kart and just included it with this game. Combine that with the remade Adventure mode and a ton of stuff I didn’t mention, and this game is fucking insane with how much content it has. Even if the gameplay changes were bad enough to be really noticeable, the amount of content this game has alone would justify playing it.
This is a great remake! So how did they fuck it up?
When I was just boasting about all this game’s content like its character count and customization options, I left out one crucial detail: how to unlock that content. The vast majority of this game’s content is locked behind the Pit Stop Shop. The Pit Stop Shop is a Fortnite-style store where a small collection of random items will be available for purchase for that day only. The next day everything will refresh. This store is online only, so if you don’t have an internet connection, you can’t buy anything. That means that most of the content on the disc/cartridge can’t be accessed without an internet connection and presumably once the Pit Stop Shop servers go down, so will most of the game. It gets worse though. How do you buy these items? You buy them with Wumpa Coins. How do you get Wumpa Coins? Well, either by grinding by playing online matches to get pitifully small amounts of coinage or by, you guessed it, spending money on microtransactions. Good ol’ Activision Blizzard. We all saw this coming, right? Let’s not forget that the whole reason this company even exists in the way it does today is because Activision wanted to jump on the live service bandwagon.
However, I wouldn’t blame you for thinking this game wouldn’t have this bullshit considering that, quite literally, one month before launch the developers told us that this game wouldn’t have microtransactions at all. Then the game came out, and no microtransactions in sight. Everyone praised the game for not doing that in their reviews. Then a month after launch, after the positive reviews had gone out and after a lot of people already bought the game and got deeply invested in it, Activision announced they were adding microtransactions to the game. Not only that, but the in game shop “coincidentally” started upping the prices of everything within the shop. They made unlocking basic cosmetics a hell of a lot grindier all for the sake of pushing people into wasting their money on this crap. How utterly despicable, especially in a game aimed towards children.
On the bright side, at least the online was good, right? Crash Team Racing is a game I’d love to have an online mode so I can play with other people. Adding an online mode to a CTR remake sounds like an incredible idea, and it is! Well, in concept at least. The online in Nitro Fueled was dead on arrival. Not even a few months after launch passed before people stopped playing. Gee, I wonder what happened to this game within a few months of launch that would turn off a lot of players. HMM. Anyway, it would take ages to find a full match, and when you did it wasn’t worth it. The most dedicated players were too advanced and the game had no matchmaking, so casual players will get destroyed and just stop playing. The characters were unbalanced. Every character was assigned an arbitrary class, and some classes were simply better than others. If you were a big Coco fan but you wanted a speed focused character, you were shit out of luck. Large portions of the roster weren’t even worth playing. The online didn’t even have servers! It was all peer to peer, which just made lag and disconnections even more of an issue. It also didn’t help the wait times either. That was all within a few months of launch. Nowadays, the game is completely dead. The only places to find a good race is in private servers with friends. Even worse is that their “live service” gave up not even a year after launch. The game was released in June 2019 and the last update was March 2020. What a joke.
Keep in mind that these past few paragraphs were based not on my own personal experience. I wasn't there at launch and I based this review off of an offline-only Yuzu version of the game. It's possible that people were exaggerating or maybe some things are fixed now. Feel free to take some of that with a grain of salt, but honestly nothing that I've heard from others then repeated here sounded remotely far fetched to me and a lot of it was backed up by a lot of other people's personal accounts. So while it's possible some of this might not be true, I believe all of it and I would never intentionally lie to people.
In conclusion, Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled was a great remake that was ruined by unbelievable greed. I’d expect nothing less from Activision Blizzard, one of the worst companies making video games today between their anti-consumer practices, their anti-employee practices, and just their general discrimination against marginalized groups. Truly they’re just anti-everyone (except their top dogs). Look, if all you care about is the gameplay and the amount of content that’s technically on display, it’s not an awful game. It is fun and the content is still there, but I just can’t recommend this game on either a product level nor on a moral level to anyone. If you want to experience Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled, the best way to is simply emulate the game with 60fps and all the Pit Stop Shop content unlocked from the get go. That will mean that you won’t be able to play the game online, but no one was using the online anyway from what I've heard. Unless you were planning on joining an online private community for this game or were planning on playing it online with your friends, there’s no reason to play this game via the official means. I’m aware that I’m suggesting piracy, but Activision Blizzard is awful so fuck them. Piracy is fine, at least in their case. It’s always moral to pirate games that were being sold by awful corporations.
Now with all that said, I’m done talking about Crash Bandicoot for now. I could go into more detail into the era of games in-between after Naughty Dog left and before the modern day revival began, but I'm honestly tired of this orange marsupial. But still, 6 essay reviews (8 if you count the multiple parts) over the course of 5 days. That's definitely a new record to me. I haven't posted anything on Tumblr here in a while, so consider this an apology I guess.
Oh who am I kidding? No one reads these things.
Well regardless, that's all folks.
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Fallout 4 vault tec dlc items
In June 2013, Andy Gavin suggested ways to revitalize the series. Fellow co-creator Jason Rubin, said he was hopeful that Activision would "Bring Crash back to their glory days and that the character is still very dear to fans between 18–49 years".Ī new design of Crash Bandicoot was spotted in a photo from the Vicarious Visions's studio, raising rumors that a new game might have been in development, though this was later confirmed to be concept art from a previously cancelled Crash game. And I would love to find a way to bring him back, if we could."Īndy Gavin, cofounder of Naughty Dog and co-creator of Crash Bandicoot, has said that he would love to see an HD version of the marsupial's first four games, or even a full blown reboot. Those were some of my favorite video games growing up. In a Kotaku interview with then-Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg regarding the future of the Crash series, he said, "I don't have anything official to announce, but I can speak as an individual, I love Crash Bandicoot. Sane Trilogy, the Crash Bandicoot franchise had been on hiatus for approximately six years, the last entry being released in 2010.
It also features remastered audio and cutscenes, including new recordings of the games' dialogue given by the franchise's more recent voice actors.
The trilogy adds new features across all three games, including unified checkpoints, pause menus and save systems, including both manual and automatic saving, time trials, which were first introduced in Warped, and the ability to play most levels in each game as Crash's sister, Coco. Like in the original games, Crash uses spinning and jumping techniques to defeat enemies, smash crates, and collect items such as Wumpa Fruits, extra lives and protective Aku Aku masks. Each game features Crash Bandicoot traversing various levels in order to stop Doctor Neo Cortex from taking over the world. Sane Trilogy is a collection of remasters of the first three games in the Crash Bandicoot series Crash Bandicoot, Cortex Strikes Back and Warped. It received generally favorable reviews from critics, and sold over 10 million copies by February 2019.Ĭrash Bandicoot N. The game was first released for PlayStation 4 in June 2017, with versions for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One being released in June 2018. It is a compilation of remasters of the first three games in the Crash Bandicoot series: Crash Bandicoot, Cortex Strikes Back, and Warped all which were originally developed by Naughty Dog for the PlayStation during the 1990s. Sane Trilogy is a platform game developed by Vicarious Visions and published by Activision.
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Tony hawk pro skater 5 gamestop
#Tony hawk pro skater 5 gamestop upgrade
#Tony hawk pro skater 5 gamestop pro
It includes the game, the deluxe edition content ('The Ripper' skater from Powell-Peralta, unique retro outfits for Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero and Rodney Mullen, and unique retro content for the Create-A-Skater mode), and a limited edition full-size Birdhouse skate board deck.
#Tony hawk pro skater 5 gamestop pro
The digital-only deluxe edition of THPS 1+2 comes with the game as well as the following digital items, according to the Epic Games Store: "'The Ripper' skater from Powell-Peralta, unique retro outfits for Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero and Rodney Mullen, and unique retro content for the Create-A-Skater mode." Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 Collector's Edition PS4Ī collector's edition for THPS 1+2 is also available. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 Digital Deluxe Edition The standard edition comes with the game itself, but honestly that's all you really need. Enter 'birdhouse' as a code to unlock the Inkblot deck.Play as Anchorman. Enter 'needaride' as a code to unlock and own all decks except the Inkblot and Gamestop.Inkblot deck.
Get it at Xbox Store (digital) - $39.99 Enter 'yougotitall' as a code to unlock and own all specials in the shop.Note: This does not include decks or pro tricks.
The game comes in several editions that come with various extras. You can check out our Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2 review for more details (spoilers, it got 9/10). It even has certain moves that weren't available in the originals, like reverts.
#Tony hawk pro skater 5 gamestop upgrade
Like the Crash remasters, THPS 1+2 keeps the bones of the original games but features a full HD visual upgrade and other modern trappings. Sane Trilogy, it's a remastered bundle of the first two games in the series. Developed by Vicarious Visions, the same company behind Crash Bandicoot N. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 is now available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
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2 months in the making. Pain. Bruising. Regret. Here it is, everyone. The 90 minute epic. Let's complete Crash Bandicoot 4. CHECK TWEET REPLIES FOR THE VIDEO LINK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yapbT_FgFQ&list=PLuau-_j-MhpiXa-8N2MnMYejzrC3yZuEB&index=1
#crash 4#crash bandicoot#crash bandicoot 4#it's about time#completionist#platinum relics#time trials#n sane trilogy#ps4#review#caddicarus#caddy#video#youtube#youtuber#n sanely perfect relics#relic#platinum#toys for bob#tawna bandicoot#cortex#wrath of cortex#dingodile#coco bandicoot
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Game Review: CRASH BANDICOOT: THE N. SANE TRILOGY (2017)
Whoa! [Translation: Click “Keep Reading”]
Oh, how I have waited for this day...
The year is 1998, or something. My mom bought me a PS1 and, what was probably recommended to her by the Futureshop employee on shift at the time, Crash Bandicoot. The original. The first. The beginning. The hardest fucking thing I’d never played.
8-year-old me was dumb, though. I sunk around twenty hours into Jersey Devil without ever understanding its mechanics or how to progress (a couple years back I thought, “How did you progress in that game?” and found out that you progress like any other free-roam platform and 8-year-old me was just an idiot who liked the game’s spooky aesthetic). I played the shit out of Beast Wars and could rarely progress (in fairness, that game was tough). It took me maybe a year to get to Darth Maul in the Phantom Menace game, but I could never beat him. Then I lost the save file, tried again, and got stuck in a Rancor pit halfway through the game, inexplicably decided to save my game there, and from then on insta-died every time I loaded it back up.
But Crash is a fairly linear platformer, and those I understood from my SNES days. What Crash beat into me and thousands of kids around the world was that the hand-holding days of cute dinosaurs was over. See that fish? That innocent little fish flopping around? IT JUST MURDERED YOU. Oh, you fell in the water? Haha -- NOW YOU’RE DROWNING AND DEAD LOOK AT YOUR FLOATING CORPSE.
1998 was also in the era of cheat code books and passwords. I made it, impressively I think, to Road to Nowhere before I gave up and found myself copying these codes down. Once I unlocked free movement across all levels, most of my time in Crash Bandicoot was spent fighting all of the bosses in succession (the hardest is N. Brio by the way). Levels like Road to Nowhere, Slippery Climb, The Lab -- these never got touched. I beat the system so I didn’t have to beat the levels.
Then Crash 2 came out. And I beat it from start to finished. Ditto Crash 3. So enough down memory lane; how does the remade trilogy stand up?
The answer is: pretty goddamn perfectly. There are some things I’ll address, but the overall package is sharp and faithful. It feels like re-living the games of my single-digit years and that was the biggest box Vicarious Visions had to check. They’ve tszujed up that bandicoot sheen while recapturing the fun of Naughty Dog’s original gameplay. Were this a remaster instead of a remake using assets from the PS1 classics, it wouldn’t be so remarkable, but VV built this from scratch and still managed to nail everything. Huge kudos to them on this. Not sure anything of this magnitude has been achieved -- remake-wise -- in the industry before.
When the game released, the Crash Bandicoot subreddit exploded. Highest among the complaints were: jumping is off, hitboxes are off, and Crash’s shoes have been coated with bacon grease. And they weren’t technically wrong: these things are changed from the original games. Jumps are not as high as they were and I don’t remember having to hold X in the first one to gain distance. Hitboxes can be wacky and drastically different from what they were in the originals, making veteran players misjudge when to spin. And Crash doesn’t land flat on surface edges anymore -- with today’s scary technology, he can realistically slip off instead of standing on 85% thin air. Creepy! Wrong! Worst game ever! Back to the PS1 classics that look like ass on my 70″ 4K HDTV!
I was in the same camp when I first booted up The N. Sane Trilogy. My first death was on the very first game on the very first level on the very first enemy. One of those giant fuckin’ crabs that you only see in level one because they’re huge and slow and the training wheels are still on. It killed me because I spun when I always used to spin in the original, and that was wrong. The hitbox for them changed. This probably caused most of my frustration with all three games for the first several hours, but I’m what the baby boomers call a “video-machine gamer,” all right? I’m adaptable. I can alter my approach to things. I can learn from errors. And a changed hitbox, as it turns out, is not the same thing as a broken hitbox. You just re-learn when to spin stuff. Now I’m not bothered by it.
Same goes for the jump. Mastering this again took time and patience, especially with certain parts of the game that don’t function properly like the ice physics in Crash 2. However, after nailing when to hold X for greater height and understanding that now Crash needs a more precise landing to avoid slipping, I’ve gotten adept at this as well. All of this is to say that those players who initially flipped out at these tweaks were hopefully just following their gut reactions like me but have now adjusted and are now having fun -- like me.
The slipping, though, man. It makes Crash 1 even harder than it was, but I still won’t call it a mistake. From what I’ve ascertained, Crash’s character model is now pill-shaped, meaning he’s gonna slip, all right? It’s just gonna happen. BONUS: watch me, in the Twitch chat room for my friend’s first play-through of this game, try to offer this advice and him taking it the wrong way.
So what are the biggest criticisms I can levy against the trilogy? Well, the music stands out as subpar, especially in direct comparison to the louder, more interesting original score. The new music feels timid -- like it’s afraid to be the bombastic presence it was in the classics. A more faithful approach to the music’s original sounds would’ve been appreciated. I’m still listening to the original score because the new one is too orchestral. It’s not as video-gamey -- not as wacky, and so that charm and atmosphere are lacking in the new trilogy. Here are some comparisons:
Temple Ruins [Original]
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Temple Ruins [Remastered]
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Crash Dash [Original]
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Crash Dash [Remastered]
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This isn’t to say the music is bad or that every remastered track is worse than its original counterpart (see: Hang Eight, Toad Village, Toxic Waste, & Future Frenzy for just a few examples of excellent new takes), but even when the music is worthy of the original score it often fades into the background and gets lost in the sound effects. I know you can adjust the volume settings to make the music louder, but I shouldn’t have to, nor do I want to -- I like all the noises in Crash Bandicoot (except the goddamn didgeridoo Crash-angel plays). This is just an area where the flame doesn’t burn as brightly as it ought to.
Also? I don’t like Cortex’s design or voice. Or most of the voice acting in general. I don’t mind how Crash sounds, but I’ve been hearing John DiMaggio voice every character in existence since 2006 and now when I hear him I can’t unhear him -- I know it’s him. Kind of like when you know Tom Kenny voices Spongebob, you’ll always know when Tom Kenny shows up in something. I know the original actor for Dingodile died 12 years ago but come on. I blame Twinsanity for this, which was the first time the series saw a massive design shift and Cortex became the weird cartoon he is now. He’s lost his menace.
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I think it’s the gums. I miss Cortex’s gums.
Cutscenes are particularly bad in Crash 2 whenever Cortex addresses you in the warp room. There are no effects to show Coco taking over the broadcast. Seems kinda lazy.
These complaints are superficial to a quality game, though. I did something 8-year-old me couldn’t do the other day: beat Crash Bandicoot without any cheat codes. I sweat and swore through The High Road and Slippery Climb, came out of it, and climbed the tower to kick Cortex off it. That feeling of accomplishment has been missed in most games these days. And now I find myself obsessing over gems. Those clear sparklies that 8-year-old me never sought because I’d shrugged them off as “way too hard” to get. I’m over halfway to nabbing them all in each game and I’m going -- oh yes, I’m going to get that motherfucking red gem on Slippery Climb. I spent 45 minutes trying to get the yellow gem on The Lab, you think I’m gonna stop now? I’ve got a collectible mind, motherfucker. I can’t pass that shit up. I’ll probably snap my controller but that’s all right because you know what? I’m a fucking adult now and I can just buy a new one. Fucking red gem!!
...Yeah, so, I love this game.
#Crash Bandicoot#Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy#Crash Bandicoot 2#Crash Bandicoot Warped#Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy review#Crash Bandicoot remastered#Crash Bandicoot comparison#Crash Bandicoot Cortex#Crash Bandicoot soundtrack#Crash Bandicoot music#Crash Bandicoot gameplay#Crash Bandicoot remake#N Sane Trilogy review
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My blind review on the first crash bandicoot game have a look and see what I think
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#Crash bandicoot#Review#Retro#Mike Ritiques#Ps1#Playstation#Naughty dog#Sony#No-stalgia#Psx#Ps4#n sane trilogy#Retrospective#Critique#Cortex#Coco#Youtube
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The Reviews: Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
#The Reviews#Crash#Crash Bandicoot#N. Sane Trilogy#midnightstrike3625#midnightstrike#PS4#Playstation 4#review#game review
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Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy Review
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy Review
Since the introduction of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 back in 2013, this console generation has been filled with numerous remasters, remakes and re-releases of games that came out on Xbox 360 and PS3.
(more…)
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#Activision#Crash Bandicoot#Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy#Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy for Xbox One Review#Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy Review#Vicarious Visions
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Crash is BACK and now on Nintendo Switch! But does it work now on the modern consoles?
See what Lawrence thinks of the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy here on MGL
#Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy#Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy review#Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy nintendo switch#Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy nintendo switch review#Crash Bandicoot Nintendo Switch#Crash Bandicoot review#video games#gaming#game review
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Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy (2017) Review [Part Two]
[This review is the second part of a larger Crash Bandicoot: N Sane Trilogy review. Please read Part One first]
Crash Bandicoot (N. Sane Version)
In my opinion, this version of Crash Bandicoot sucks. The trilogy gave Crash a much heavier jump and changed his hitboxes to make his jumping way less reliable. Levels that were fairly easy in the original such as Road to Nowhere became way harder when basic jumping and landing on platforms became far less consistent. Essentially, Crash has a pill shaped hitbox that’ll make him slip off platforms if you’re too close to the edge of it. This effectively made every platform in the game slightly smaller and made every jump have slightly less room for error. When combined with the heavier jumps and a game that's designed as deliberately as this one, the remaster just makes the game much less enjoyable to play in my opinion. That’s not to say the remaster has NO benefits, as it fixed the save system, made Stormy Ascent easier to access, and it made 100% easier by letting you see box totals and saving broken boxes with checkpoints, allowing you to die but still get the gem. So there are reasons to play the remaster instead, and if you own the remaster and haven’t played it yet, it’s still a decent way to play this game. However in my opinion, the pros don’t outweigh the cons. On a final note for the remaster, I’ll add that if you’re someone who played the remastered version of this game and didn’t like it, try the original. I hated the remaster when I first played it and I ended up loving the original.
Speaking of Stormy Ascent, that was a level that was cut from the original for being too hard. You could still play it with a Gameshark code however. I’ve played it. It was long and hard with some spaced out checkpoints, but it wasn’t too bad. I enjoyed the challenge. On the ORIGINAL, that is. On the remake I spent like an hour and 70 lives dying over and over, while I only died like 10 times in the original game. The remake had more checkpoints in that level too, and it was still way harder! Even Vicarious Visions knows that they made the jumping a lot harder because they acknowledged that in a blog post. Remember when this remaster came out and the Gamers™ called everyone “fake gamers” who complained about the difficulty? Remember how they were like “Oh, back in my day these games were even harder!” Well guess what? They weren’t. They were a lot easier, in fact.
Anyway on to Crash 2.
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (N. Sane Version)
Crash 2 has a lot of the same changes as Crash 1. It has the bad hitboxes and it has the inaccurate jumping, however this time around it’s different. You see, all three games in the trilogy are based off of Crash 3. In case you forgot, Crash 1 had a light jump, Crash 2 had a heavy jump, and Crash 3 had something in between. Crash 2’s jump was too heavy, so switching to Crash 3 was an improvement. Also, Crash 2 and 3’s jumps were both balanced around the slide jump, a high and floaty jump that basically replaces the normal jump button in a lot of places. The slide jump is basically a souped-up version of Crash 1’s normal jump, but for Crash 2 and 3. With the precise slide jump, getting around the garbage hitboxes is a ton easier. It also ends up making Crash 1 feel like the heaviest game in the trilogy, when it was originally the opposite.
That begs the question: Why didn’t they add the slide to Crash 1? If they would’ve done that, the game would’ve been sooo much better. I understand that it would be less accurate to some extent, but how about this: Only give Coco the slide in Crash 1. In this remaster, you can choose to unlock Coco in any of the games. Like, literally choose. They give you an option. However Coco plays no differently, despite being canonically from the future (it’s not explained). Specifically Crash 3. So wouldn't it make sense for her to have moves from future games? Hell, while you’re at it: Give Coco the double jump and crash dash from the start in all three games. Coco would essentially be an easier option either for people struggling or just people who want to mix things up with moves from later Crash games in Crash 2 and 3. I think that would’ve been brilliant.
Oh anyway, yeah Crash 2 remake was ok. Overall I’d say between the better gravity and worse hitboxes it balances out to being equal with the original. They also improved the jetpack controls somewhat, but not by a lot. Anyway now for Crash 3.
Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
Still refusing to just call it Crash Bandicoot: Warped. Anyway Crash 3 wasn’t half bad. Firstly, the enhanced moveset completely corrects the bad hitboxes. The hitboxes are still bad, but you won’t be able to casually notice. Also the core jumping gameplay was designed around 3 from the get go, so the platforming levels in this game are basically identical. As for the vehicle levels, well let’s go down the list.
Scuba levels: They’re the same. They still suck.
Jet Ski levels: They control a bit worse. They’re a lot less precise and feel more like a real jet ski. Honestly though, I think they’re better. The original jet ski levels were way too easy and became boring. The less precise and more realistic controls actually end up improving these levels.
Motorcycle levels: They control a lot worse, and this time that’s a bad thing. The motorcycle has awful handling and now requires you to break and come to a complete stop at times just to make certain turns. This certainly isn’t CTR I’ll say that much.
Airplane levels: These levels were a pain in the ass in the originals, but now they’re just fine. Your plane no longer snaps back to center position which makes aiming soo much easier. It’s honestly too easy now. These levels are effortless for late game stages.
Things like airplane levels are also enhanced by the new analog stick support. The original Playstation controller didn’t have dual sticks, so a lot of PS1 games didn’t have analog input, including the Crash trilogy. Or at least, THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT!! Turns out Crash 2, 3, and CTR all natively support full analog input on the original Playstation. I found this out after I beat the games already. I guess I just never tried hitting the analog button in Crash 2 or 3. I feel like such a dumbass. Oh, and if you’re wondering Crash 3 PS1’s airplane levels do play nicer on analog sticks. They still aren’t good, but you can aim a lot easier with the more precise analog inputs.
Crash 3 also introduced a brand new level: Future Tense. Originally, Crash N. Sane Trilogy was a PS4 exclusive. However a year later it was released on all platforms. To celebrate that release, they added a new level to the game. Future Tense is designed to be the hardest Crash 3 level and is supposed to be that game’s version of Stormy Ascent. However, it wasn’t very hard for me. It was a bit more difficult than the average level I suppose, but not by much honestly. It was a very fun level though. Probably the best level in the N. Sane Trilogy, and that’s probably because it was actually designed with the N. Sane Trilogy in mind.
In conclusion, Crash 3 N. Sane was an improvement overall. The only real downgrade was the motorcycle levels. As for the N. Sane Trilogy in general, it was ok I guess. Other than Crash 1, the trilogy versions of these games are pretty interchangeable with the original versions to me. However, the original trilogy wasn’t the only thing that got remade...
[To be continued...]
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