Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back - Snow Go + Hang Eight

So, err, seven months ago I started this....I've been, like, super busy (he lied). Let's forget about all that for now and head right into part two of my adventures to finally beat the first ever Playstation game I ever played: Crash Bandicoot 2.

We had just found the first crystal for Cortex. Now it was time for...

Level 2 - Snow Go

I must say, I was very surprised when I found out that "Snow Go" did not turn out to be a volcano level. Still, right off the bat the level throws in something new - the Nitro crate. Unlike the TNT crate - Nitro's blow up instantly. Don't touch them.

Ice physics make their introduction to the series. It's same as any other game - as soon as you touch ice you lose a little bit of control as Crash continues sliding in a certain direction. It's not too annoying in this level, thankfully.

Like the previous game, there will be side-scrolling sections within the actual levels. And much like the previous game, half the enemies are just innocent animals doing their own thing - like this penguin. It just walks back and forth - spins in place, then starts walking again.

They can be annoying little buggers in small spaces though and have caused more than a couple of deaths in the past.

Anyone who kills these fellas will not receive my "Seal of approval". They also just go back and forth. Easy enough to ignore. Just beyond that is a pillar that will close as you walk past it. Unless you dawdle, you shouldn't get caught in it.

These ones, on the other hand, are timed. Much like a great philosopher once said "All you need is a little patience". And who would dare argue with Axl Rose?

That's really about it for the level - it's otherwise a bog standard level. Unlike...

Level 3 - Hang Eight

Honestly, I thought the original Hang trilogy was good but I wasn't fan of Hang's 4-7. So how does Hang Eight compare?

Well it's a water level - similar to levels seen in  the original game. Here we can see a piranha having a jolly good time, but remember this advice: "Always avoid partying piranahas!". 

This is a Venus Fly Trap (apparently). We see it as a oversized monstrous plant - it sees us as a marsupial snack. Spin into it before it eats you.

What's this?

AAAAND WE'RE OFF! Crash Bandicoot making his first appearance in the Aboriginal Extreme Sports Tournament and he is off to a great start! He successfully avoids the first set of mines...

...and he's careful not to get caught in the whirlpools. Get too close to them and you'll be sucked in to a dark void never to be seen again. Crash is on course for a great position as long as he doesn't...crash.

We're onto the foot section of the course and now Crash must jump on the Hippo to get to the other side.

He picks up the crystal! Just two more Hippos to jump on and then...

YES! He's back on the jetski! And he's found the boost button! That is a face of a bandicoot who is loving life right now!

But sadly all good things have to come to an end...so how well did Crash do in his first round?

He seems happy enough! 

But what did the judges think...?

Cortex: "Three crystals? Not bad. I see you are getting the hang of it. I need to conserve power. I will communicate with you again after you retrieve the fifth crystal."

Next time: We retrieve the fifth crystal. YEAH!

My Top Five "Horror" Gaming Moments

Halloween. For many people it's their favourite day of the year - a chance to dress up as scarily as possible (or at least show a scary lack of imagination) or watch movies that make them jump out of their skin. For me, personally, as much as I like Halloween I'm not a huge fan of "horror" movies or such. Despite this, as a gamer I have found myself being scared, creeped out or simply unsettled by what I am playing. So, in celebration of Halloween I am going to recount my top five gaming "horror" moments.

Now, first of all this is a personal list and thus you may disagree that some of these even count as "scary". Second of all, as I mentioned I'm not a huge fan of horror so most of these are from non-horror games - as such, they are probably scarier for me within the context of the game. Now, without further adieu, let the horror commence!

There will be spoilers...

5) Spider-Man - Monster-Ock

Picture this, you've just defeated Doc Ock and Carnage back-to-back. Spider-Man poses heroically as he begins his "it's all over" monologue when suddenly...

 

The result of Carnage's symbiote attaching itself to Doc Ock, turning him into Monster Ock. However, instead of fighting you have to run away from him as Ock's lab starts exploding. What follows is a very tense run (and swing) for your life, as Monster Ock chases you screaming such lovely things as "DIEEEEEEE". A part of the scariness of this boss is being constantly chased and knowing that if Ock catches up - you're dead. Although this section did go on slightly too long, it was for the most part a thrilling way to end one of Spider-Man's greatest video game adventures.

4) Heavy Rain - The Lizard

Heavy Rain revolved around the story of Ethan Mars and how far he would go to save his son. Many of his tasks involve a little sacrifice or risk of death. The Lizard, however, is the one everyone who plays it will remember. You're asked by the origami killer to cut off the top section of one of your fingers, on camera, in order to get the next clue to your son's location. You're given a wide variety of tools to help you do it...

 

It's one of the hardest to watch scenes in gaming history. It's made worse by the fact that you have to do it yourself (or at least, move the analogue stick to perform the action). It's not "horror" in the traditional sense but there are very few scenes in video games that are more unsettling.

3) Resident Evil 2 - Start of the Game

I'll be honest, I've not played a lot of RE2. Despite this, I still remember the very start of the game and how tense that was. After the opening cinematic, you're left to fend for yourself. The game isn't saved, you have no healing items and very little ammo. You have to run from most of the zombies, but they are relentless.

Through narrow alleyways, buildings and even an abandoned bus you will have to decide whether to fight or flee the hoarde of zombies. Try to fight them all you'll run out of ammo. Run away from them all and you might miss some useful items. Nowhere is safe until you reach the police station and with it, the first save point of the game. Horror games love to remind you how powerless you are at the beginning of the game, but RE 2 did it better than any other.

2) Metal Gear Solid 2 - Arsenal Gear

This one is definitely a personal moment. I was eleven years old when I first played Metal Gear Solid 2 and I was loving it. It was my first entryway into the Metal Gear series and it was quickly becoming one of my all time favourites. Then I got to Arsenal Gear. Running around as a naked Raiden was funny at first but then I started getting codec (MGS' version of the radio) calls like this:

 

Being a rather idiotic eleven year old who did not quite understand the whole "fourth-wall" thing, I did. Embarrassingly, I then had nightmares about this - though the specifics of them I do not remember. Young me simply was not ready for crazy Colonel Campbell and when I did find the courage to play on it didn't get any easier until, as always, Solid Snake showed up to save the day. Even today, I am a little unsettled at this whole section as an aftermath of the effect this had on eleven-year-old me. But ten years on I am a braver man now and I'm not gonna let some silly video game scare me int...

 

AHHHH.

1) Alan Wake

This one is a bit odd because it's not a particular moment that was the scariest. You see, the main gimmick of Alan Wake was that the darkness is unsafe. Enemies are essentially shadows until you shine your torch on them and make then vulnerable to death. The only times you are safe is when you're in light. So, the reason this is number one is due to the psychological effect this game had on me every time I stopped playing. I tend to play games at the dead of night, just before going to bed. I played Alan Wake every night for a week. I would then go to bed. In the dark. After spending a couple of hours training my brain to fear the dark, it would take me a while to switch back to reality.

Alan Wake is a really good game, but isn't that scary. The game itself calls itself a "Psychological Action Thriller" which is a fair description. However it does a brilliant job in conditioning your brain into fearing the dark and that is why it's my number one "horror" gaming moments - because the rest of the list may have been scary within the context of the game, Alan Wake was the only one (bar MGS 2, which can be explained by me being a child when I played it) that truly affected me out of the game. Kudos, Remedy.

Crash Bandicoot 2 - Intro + Turtle Woods

You know, there are some games that I'll play for Super Game Fighter that mean something extra to me. This is one of those games.

Just imagine being five years old. Your gaming experiences beforehand had been 8-bit Sonic games for the Master System and the Super Mario Land games for the Game Boy.

Then your older sister gets a Playstation for her birthday. You barely know what a Playstation is, but everyone's super excited about it for some reason. Being five, you get a little bit excitable too.

They put the disc in, you hear that iconic opening jingle for the first time. You look over at your sister, holding the controller in her hands - it had so many buttons! And then you turn back to the television to see this...

Just imagine being that little boy, about to play the Playstation for the very first time. Going from the games of old, to this - it is something I'll never experience again.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this was it. The first Playstation game I ever played, and possibly the reason I'm here as a gamer today. I had always liked games, but Crash Bandicoot 2 was just so amazing looking compared to anything else I had ever played. To a five-year old mind, this was as close to real as it got. Over time I commandeered my sister's Playstation and adopted it as my own. By this point she had managed to accidentally break this game, so I never could play it until a few years ago when it became available on the Playstation Network.

But this game put me on the path of becoming a gamer, much before Pokémon and Final Fantasy entered my life. It will be a hell of an experience playing through this game and finally, sixteen years later, beating it. But if there's one thing I can guarantee, is that we're going to have some fun.

Unlike the previous game, there is a fair amount of story and dialogue in the game - though never more than a minute or two at a time. I'll transcribe what they say on here for the meantime, but I am playing with the idea of including all the cutscenes and dialogue in a video at the end of updates. We'll see. For now...let's get to it.

We see what happens to Cortex immediately after the events of Crash Bandicoot 1, falling to his inevitable and painful death...pah, as if! Crash Bandicoot works on cartoon physics and as such, a fall from above the clouds is merely an inconvenience to Dr. Cortex. In fact, crash lands inside a cave where he finds...

*Cue Cortex's evil laugh* ...the Master Crystal!

We go aboard Cortex's space station, where he's joined by a new character...

Meet Doctor N. Gin!

"But Doctor Cortex, to reach full power, we need not only your Master Crystal, but also the remaining 25 Slave Crystals on the surface. How do you expect to retrieve them when we don't have any earthbound operatives left?"

Cortex: "You fool! Do you think I'm unaware of the situation?! If we don't have any friends left on the surface, then we'll need to find... an enemy..."

I wonder who he could mean...surely not...

Here we see the elusive Bandicoots in their natural states. It is a little known fact that Bandicoots are found either sleeping, or typing away at a laptop. Isn't nature awesome?

Meet Crash's sister Coco. 

Coco: "Crash? Crash! Crash, my battery's fried. Make yourself useful, big brother, and bring an extra battery for me."

This seems just a little familiar. Welcome to Crash Bandicoot 2: Quest for the Battery. I guess the Outback is full of laptop batteries? I wonder if they grow on trees? Regardless, it's time for an adventure! Crash can still do all the stuff he could before like run, jump...

...bouncy crates still hold ten Wumpa Fruits.

The Aku-Aku masks also make a return - they grant Crash an extra hit he can take before he dies. Collecting two grants him a second extra hit and a third will make him invincible for a short duration of time.

The game still throws lives at you, though with one little improvement - your life counter is also saved when you save the game, meaning you won't lose your lives every time you leave the game. This is rather handy. In fact, you could say it is a...LIFESAVER.

Crash clearly didn't appreciate that joke and is currently banging his head off the ground in reaction. No, wait, this is just showing off a new move in Crash's arsenal, the bodyslam. Just jump, press the circle button and he'll slam himself to the ground, breaking boxes in his path. In fact, there is a new box we'll see soon that can only be destroyed with bodyslams.

Hey, what's this?

What is going on?

This place looks odd...like a room of portals. Hmm...I wonder who's behind this?

ARGH, IT'S THE GHOSTLY HEAD OF CORTEX!

Cortex: "Well, well, well. If it isn't Crash Bandicoot. Welcome. I apologize for the crude means used to bring you here, but I'd rather expect a written invitation to be turned down. I need your help. Surrounding you are a series of five doors. Through each door lies a well-hidden Crystal. The Crystals look like this."

"Bring me the crystals, Crash. That is all I can say for now. We will speak again."

Well he seems trustworthy! 

I just cannot wait to help this kind man who tried to kill us a year ago! We'll start with level 1, it seems like a good place to start! (though you can do any of the five levels on this floor in any order).

Each level will start with us being beamed in like this. It is a little known fact that Crash Bandicoot was initially considered for a role in the recent Star Trek films, but sadly lost the role of Spock to someone else. Shame, I definitely get the sense that Crash is a wise, intelligent man.

This is like the level we were abducted from, except it is raining. Now on the ground there is an access to a special type of bonus stage. I ignored it. I'm terrible at them. It's like regular bonus stages, but harder. If you're going for the clear gem in this level, you need to go through this to destroy all the crates. I'm not going after all the gems because I guarantee I'd still be here six months from now trying to find every bloody crate.

These bonus stages are okay with me though.

It's a return to the side-scrolling platforming seen in the original game's bonus stages. Just break all the crates, collect all the fruits and you'll normally get a good two or three lives out of it.

Reach the end and the platform will take you back to the level, while your loot gets absorbed into your totals.

Mud is annoying, especially when there is crates in it. The mud takes away a lot of your momentum and speed, and for some reason I find it very hard to jump on top of the crates to break 'em.

I always feel a bit offended when I play Crash games...I feel like the developers are telling me "Hey, nerd, get a life!". But why do I need to get a life? I HAVE NINE! I'm like a cat!

These pits are easy enough to deal with. I have a triple Aku-Aku mask on in this image, but my usual technique is to spam the spin button.

Get close and spin as they come out of the ground and they won't be an issue.

The crystal will always in the level, which means it is possible to complete the level without collecting the crystal. However, remember when Cortex said "Through each door is a well-hidden crystal"? Yeah, he's lying, the crystals are pretty much always in plain sight. 

The iron gate symbolises the end of the level!

If you break all the boxes in the level you will find your gem here. But for the first level, there is a second gem you can get. Apparently the way to get it is to finish the level without breaking any crates. That will grant you the blue gem.

Look how triumphant he looks! Crash is as elegant as always.

The rooms getting darker, Crash is looking confused, Aku-Aku hasn't got a character yet...it can only mean one thing...

HOLOGRAM TIME.

Cortex: "Well done, Crash. I knew I could rely on you. Now listen carefully. These holograms are hard to maintain. During the course of my intellectual pursuits, I have come across a force that threatens to destroy the world. Crystals are the only means of containing it. The fate of the world is at stake. It is imperative therefore that you bring them to me!"

Coco interrupts...

Coco: "Are you there Crash? Crash? Crash? Are you there Crash? ... Are you there Crash?"

No, he isn't. He's taking a break and so am I! See you next time, where we'll beat the rest of the warp room.