Crash Twinsanity

An example of gameplay in Crash Twinsanity

Crash Twinsanity differs from previous entries in the series through its free-roaming gameplay style; the player can explore the game's environments in all directions and travel seamlessly between levels.[1] Gems littered throughout the levels can be collected to unlock extra content such as concept art and storyboards.[2] Over the course of the game, the player controls three different characters: Crash, Cortex (or both at the same time) and new character Nina Cortex. Crash is the primary player character and has the ability to jump into the air and land on enemy characters, spin in a tornado-like fashion to knock enemies off-screen, slide across the ground and perform a body slam to break certain objects. Cortex is armed with a raygun and a limited amount of ammo, and Nina uses her mechanical arms to punch enemies and latch onto distant ledges. When Crash and Cortex are together, Crash can use Cortex to increase the range of his spin attack, use Cortex's head as a hammer to break certain objects, and hurl Cortex across gaps to activate switches. Two levels in the game, titled "HumiliSkate", involve Crash riding Cortex as a makeshift snowboard, while two others, titled "Doc Amok", involve Crash clearing a path for a blindly fleeing Cortex. An early level, titled "RollerBrawl", involves the player steering Crash and Cortex through a level as they engage in a brawl.[3]

Wumpa Fruit is scattered throughout the game, and grant an extra life if 100 Fruits are collected. Crates also carry Wumpa Fruit, which can be obtained if the crates are broken. TNT crates explode after a three-second fuse when jumped on, while Nitro crates explode upon any physical contact. Crates with plungers will detonate any Nitro crates in the immediate vicinity. Checkpoint crates allow the player to return to a specific point in the stage upon losing a life, while World crates save the player's progress.[4]

Three years after his previous defeat by Crash, Doctor Neo Cortex returns to the Wumpa Islands to exact revenge on Crash. Cortex incapacitates Crash's sister Coco and impersonates her to lure Crash into a trap. After Crash's victory against Cortex and his Mecha-Bandicoot, Cortex and Crash are both sent plummeting down a hole and land in a cave. Enraged by his defeat, Cortex attacks Crash, and the pair engage in a prolonged fight across the cave. Upon returning to the surface, Crash and Cortex encounter a pair of interdimensional beings named the Evil Twins, who plan to destroy the Wumpa Islands and steal Cortex's brain. After Cortex pleads for Crash's help, he is spontaneously attacked by bees and finds himself captured by Papu Papu and his subordinate tribesmen after stumbling into their territory. Crash rescues Cortex from captivity and escapes a pursuing mob of tribesmen. Crash and Cortex have another encounter with the Evil Twins, who bring a deity statue to life to attack the pair. Cortex, having learned that the Evil Twins come from the Tenth Dimension, concocts a plan and beckons Crash to his arctic lair.

Crash and Cortex attempt to enter the Iceberg Lair through the front entrance, but the door is frozen shut, forcing the pair to take an alternate path inside. They inadvertently free Uka Uka in the process, who attacks them with a giant body formed from ice. Uka Uka is convinced by his twin brother Aku Aku to join forces and attack the Evil Twins themselves, but both are easily defeated. Cortex introduces the Psychetron, a device that will allow travel to the Tenth Dimension, but requires Power Crystals to function. Crash uses Cortex as an impromptu snowboard in an attempt to reach Doctor N. Gin's battleship and gather the Power Crystals, and destroys Dingodile's shack in the process. Crash's venture through the battleship eventually results in an explosion of a cache of TNT crates, which sinks the ship and propels Crash into a confrontation with Doctors Nefarious Tropy and Nitrus Brio on a distant ice floe. Crash returns to the Iceberg Lair with Cortex, where the latter is attacked by a recovered Coco, who believes that Cortex kidnapped Crash. Coco's assault sends two of the Power Crystals flying into the Psychetron, which damages the machine and paralyzes Coco in a chain reaction. Crash and Cortex set a course for Madame Amberly's Academy of Evil in the hopes of recruiting Cortex's niece Nina to assist in repairing the Psychetron.

Crash and Cortex sneak into the Academy through the sewer system, where they fend off an attack from Dingodile. After Cortex finds Nina and has an encounter with Madame Amberly, he recalls the origin of the Evil Twins: when Cortex was an 8-year-old student in the Academy, he used his two pet parrots Victor and Moritz as test subjects for a prototype of his Evolvo-Ray, but the experiment resulted in the parrots being transported to the Tenth Dimension, where they would be mutated by the environment's severe "reverso-radiation". The trio return to the Iceberg Lair, repair the Psychetron and travel to the Tenth Dimension to face the Evil Twins. Upon their arrival, Nina is kidnapped by an evil doppelganger of Crash and taken to his desolate home on Twinsanity Island. After cornering Evil Crash, Cortex valiantly offers himself in Nina's stead, which leads to a chase. Crash, Cortex and Nina escape Evil Crash and make their way to the Evil Twins' compound, where Cortex confronts the Evil Twins and commands them back into their cage. The Evil Twins transform their cage into a giant robot and engage in a final battle with the trio. The Evil Twins are defeated and flee the compound, only to be devoured by Evil Crash when they take refuge in his home. After the trio return to their own dimension, Cortex attempts to eliminate Crash, but the malfunctioning Psychetron teleports Cortex into Crash's brain, where he is trapped with a crowd of dancing Crash duplicates.

Crash Twinsanity marks the series debut of Lex Lang (pictured in 2013) as the voice of series antagonist, Doctor Neo Cortex.

Crash Twinsanity was developed by Traveller's Tales Oxford and published by Vivendi Games in North America and by Sierra Entertainment in Europe and Australia. The game was originally titled Crash Bandicoot Evolution and featured a premise involving the Evil Twins stealing Crash's island from Earth and grafting it onto a giant planet made from pieces of others. The tone of the game was intended to be more serious than preceding entries in the series, with the term "edgy" being widely used among the development team.[5] Richard M. Albon, the lead conceptual artist for Crash Bandicoot Evolution, based the Evil Twins on his girlfriend's two hateful cockatiels.[6] In response to the release of Insomniac Games' Ratchet & Clank, which featured an identical premise, Traveller's Tales abandoned Crash Bandicoot Evolution and restarted production with a focus on making the next Crash title as comedic as possible. The new game went through several working subtitles, including Unlimited, Fully Fluxed and Twinsane;[5] the Unlimited subtitle appears in a PAL-region demo released with the September 2004 issue of Official UK PlayStation 2 Magazine.[7] Eventually, Vivendi Games gave Traveller's Tales one hour to choose the final title before the default selection of Unlimited. Lead artist Keith Webb came up with the title Crash Twinsanity with only five minutes to spare.[5]

Lead designer Paul Gardner and artist Daniel Tonkin explained that Doctor Cortex was made playable as an opportunity to explore his character, and was teamed up with Crash because "it didn't make sense to make them two opposing characters who were playable because the player would be kind of playing against himself".[8] The character Nina Cortex was created and designed by Duke Mighten for an early version of Crash Nitro Kart, and was reappropriated for Crash Twinsanity due to her popularity among the development team. Gardner created a rough model of Nina modified from that of Neo Cortex,[9] and her final model was created by Chris Abedelmassieh. Nina's model was created over the course of a single weekend.[5] Although Crash Twinsanity was intended to be Nina's debut appearance, Gardner was alerted to her early appearance in Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage by Webb, who came across Nina's image in newly-released screenshots of the game.[10] Crunch Bandicoot was included in a cameo appearance due to his fan-favourite status. A stage taking place in Coco's mind, "Gone a Bit Coco", was removed because production was too far along to guarantee that the stage could be finished and played without crashing. Other content, such as a cameo by Fake Crash and the appearance of a good version of Doctor Cortex, was also removed,[5] but appears in unlockable concept images in the final game.[11] A punching maneuver by Crash that appeared in the Crash Bandicoot Unlimited demo was removed due to its inadvertent capability of destroying scenery.[5][7]

When Lex Lang was called in for an audition to replace previous voice actor Clancy Brown, the voice director described Doctor Cortex to him and had him listen to signature samples of Brown's performance. When Lang was given the freedom to develop the character with the director, they eventually created a depiction of Cortex that was "master evil with a bit of a childish feminine side that leaks out in his tirades" that had everyone laughing at the lines and the character.[12] Monty Python's Flying Circus was an additional influence on Lang's delivery as Cortex.[13] Other voice roles include Mel Winkler as Aku Aku and a tribesman, Michael Ensign as Doctor Nefarious Tropy and a tribesman, Susan Silo as Madame Amberley and Nina Cortex, Debi Derryberry as Coco Bandicoot and Neo Cortex as an eight-year-old, Alex Fernandez as Uka Uka and Farmer Ernest, Dwight Schultz as Dingodile, Rusty Walrus, a tribesman and Papu Papu, and Quinton Flynn as Doctor N. Gin, the Evil Twins and a penguin. The full-motion videos of Crash Twinsanity were created by Red Eye Studios, who previously created the full-motion videos for Crash Nitro Kart. The soundtrack of Crash Twinsanity was composed, performed, arranged and produced by a cappella band Spiralmouth, while Gabriel Mann recorded and mixed the soundtrack at Asylum Recording Studios in Los Angeles.[14]

Crash Twinsanity went gold on September 7, 2004,[15] and was released in North America on September 28, 2004.[16][17] A version for the GameCube was announced, but not released.[18] In 2007, the PlayStation 2 version of Crash Twinsanity was re-released in the three-disc Crash Bandicoot Action Pack compilation alongside Crash Nitro Kart and Crash Tag Team Racing.[19]

Crash Twinsanity received mixed reviews from critics upon release. James B. Pringle of IGN praised the freshness of the levels (comparing the "ingenious" Doc Amok levels to Lemmings) and seamless transitions between them, as well as the amount of unlockable extra content, but was critical of the presence of an on-screen instruction during the totem boss battle.[1] Chris Stead of Australian GamePro commended the game's humor and gameplay variety, but was annoyed by the "slightly off" controls.[26] Brent Soboleski of TeamXbox was grateful for the introduction of a three-dimensional environment and was entertained by the spiteful partnership between Crash and Cortex.[34] Andrew Wooldridge of 1UP.com considered the varied gameplay to be "a definite improvement on the claustrophobic linear levels of games past".[22] Ryan Davis of GameSpot described the solo platforming sections as "pretty by the book" and the sections with Crash and Cortex together as "actually a little dull", but considered the RollerBrawl, HumiliSkate and Doc Amok levels to be clever and fun, and felt that the constant shifting of characters and gameplay styles kept the game fresh and interesting.[27][28] Nick Valentino of GameZone welcomed the gameplay changes brought about by the alliance of Crash and Cortex.[29] Louis Bedigian of the same site derided the sluggish controls and felt that the game lacked the depth, challenge and replayability of previous entries, although he considered the "clever" RollerBrawl segment to be the best in the game.[30] Kristan Reed of Eurogamer described the alternate gameplay styles as well-implemented and "excellent diversions from the standard run and jump Crash gameplay", but was disappointed by the offset of tired and formulaic platforming sections, the faulty autosave mechanic and the dodgy camera.[24] The gameplay aspect of controlling Crash and Cortex in tandem drew comparisons to Jak and Daxter and Whiplash,[22][27][28][29] while the RollerBrawl segment was widely compared to Super Monkey Ball.[24][27][28][30] The character Nina Cortex was positively received by critics, many of whom compared her extending robotic arms to Bionic Commando.[1][27][28][29] The game's dodgy and uncooperative camera was universally criticized.[1][26][27][28][29][34]

Pringle noted the "cartoon-like" feel given to the game by its crisp and vibrant colors, and described the full-motion videos as sharp and having "pretty" lighting schemes.[1] Stead acknowledged the graphics as "quite pretty", but stated that the collision detection and frequent invisible barriers "leave a lot to be desired".[26] Soboleski, Davis and Valentino proclaimed Twinsanity to be the best-looking Crash Bandicoot game to date; they pointed out the increased detail in Crash and Cortex's designs and their smoother and more expressive animations that telegraph their personalities, although Soboleski and Davis noted the inferior particle and lighting effects and frame rate in the PlayStation 2 version compared to the Xbox version. Soboleski additionally observed that the "highly vibrant" color palettes of the environments served to offset their lack of extensive detail.[27][28][34][29] Wooldridge, while considering the game to be "quite a bit of an upgrade in the graphics department" compared to previous games, pointed out the "little visual twitches here and there as textures and models sometimes just pop into existence while you zoom across the screen".[22] Bedigian dismissed the environments as plain and the enemy characters as lacking detail.[30] Reed, while commending the polished and humorous cutscenes and seamless environments, was less than impressed with the overall graphical quality compared to Sony-backed titles, pointing out the short draw distance and lack of texture and details in the scenery as particular flaws.[24]

Pringle stated that the music was fitting, but admitted that he "wasn't a fan" of the "pop-jazz" music in the snow/ice level, which "[wore] on [his] nerves after a while".[1] Soboleski praised the voice-acting as "well done, with the right amount of sarcasm, humor and attitude to keep players laughing", but criticized the music as "quite repetitive and pretty cliché based on what we have been hearing year after year from the series."[34] Wooldridge was amused by the game's music and said that "Sounding something like a team of Bobby McFerrin wannabes (you know, "Don't Worry, Be Happy") the vocalists really go all out to give the game a slapstick feel".[22] Davis commended the music as catchy and admired the unique a cappella aspect of the soundtrack, but added that while the game's stock Crash Bandicoot sound effects "fit snugly" into the sound design, "some of them are used too often and some of them just sound a little tired."[27][28] While Valentino enjoyed the game's soundtrack,[29] Bedigian lambasted it as "insanely annoying music that doesn't fit with the wacky and crazy world of Crash Bandicoot".[30] Reed found the music to be "occasionally inspired" and was surprised by the quality of some of the game's tracks (citing the Uka Uka boss fight as an example), but warned that "others, however, numb the brain into mulch so don't expect undiluted quality".[24]

Official Xbox Magazine declared that "even if you're frustrated by dying on a jump for the 50th time, you'll still think it's funny as hell."[32] PSM Magazine praised the graphics and controls but criticized the level design, saying that it was "designed to kill the player in as many cheap ways as possible".[33] A reviewer for Game Informer finished with "While it pains me to say this, maybe Crash should make like the entire cast of Blossom and disappear."[25] Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine described the game as "a bummer" and "a tragic tale of missed opportunities, as a funny, engaging platformer shines through the me-too muck".[31] Electronic Gaming Monthly decided that "the funny writing (courtesy of an ex-Ren & Stimpy scribe) can't save this uninspired rehash of antiquated Crash antics with lackluster visuals."[23]

The character of Doctor Cortex and Lex Lang's vocal performance were singled out for praise among reviewers. Pringle noted that the game "shows a side of the evil doctor that we haven't seen before" and, while describing the game's dialogue as "solid," said that "Cortex is the one you want to keep listening to."[1] Soboleski believed that Cortex was "probably the best and most entertaining character of the game since players get a completely different look at his personality this time through," and felt that he was "very funny and his sarcasm and evil attitude are a perfect match for his personality."[34] Davis analyzed "Cortex's constant creeping and sniveling" as "a great showcase of the kinds of neuroses that might cause one to gain an interest in evil science," and added that "the strained grandeur of Cortex's speech" was the most "accomplished" voice work in the game.[27][28] Gordy Wheeler of Worth Playing considered Cortex "having abuse heaped on him like a classic Warner Brothers character" to be "the most fun part of this game," and went on to heavily praise Lang's vocal performance, writing that "just about all of the game's best lines come from Cortex, and his voice actor brings it home solidly. He may be on the way to being my favorite mad scientist ever and that's a heck of a feat. Someone get his voice actor into another role RIGHT NOW. I want more of him."[35] Valentino felt that "the biggest laughs, believe it or not, come from Doctor Neo Cortex who comes off as nutty in the best possible way. He's filled with witty observations and often pokes fun of his past encounters with Crash." He later remarked that "the twisted Doctor is one hilarious bloke and his dialogue just makes him all the more likeable".[29]

According to Keith Webb, one of the main artists for Crash Twinsanity, after the development of the game, Traveller's Tales Oxford studio had plans for a sequel, which was ultimately not accepted by Vivendi Universal. The plot would have centered around Crash getting sucked into various TV shows (such as a wild west show, or an old black-and-white cartoon) by an invention created by Dr. Cortex, similar to the Gex series. The game would include over 25 levels, one of them being a hospital drama level that would have had enemies holding needles and Crash would ride through the hospital halls on a stretcher. Webb also mentioned a level with Rusty Walrus hosting a cooking show, ending up with a chase sequence, similar to Crash's last encounter with him. This idea for a sequel was cancelled alongside the studio's closure, and development of further Crash Bandicoot games was transferred to Radical Entertainment, leading to Crash of the Titans.[10]

On August 3, 2017, following the release of N. Sane Trilogy, Webb sent an open letter to Vicarious Visions, congratulating them on the large success of the game. In the letter, Webb stated that if they would ever be interested in developing a Twinsanity remake, he and a handful of previous developers would gladly return to work on it. As a bonus, he added a piece of artwork containing all the characters within Twinsanity.[36]

• Crash Twinsanity at MobyGames