To many gamers, myself included, Crash Bandicoot was a character who lived and died in the 90's. The first entry was one of the first crown jewels in Sony's lineup, and the two sequels were the finest platformers of their generation. Sure, they didn't offer near the amount of freedom of Mario 64 or the limitless imagination of Nights, but Crash had it where it counted in the gameplay department. With the advent of the PS2, Naughty Dog moved onto Jak, and most loyalties moved right over to their new superstar. Crash wasn't dead, but his severance as Sony's mascot and some less than compelling adventures from new developers removed him from the A list of platformers.

Crash Bandicoot first came to the Playstation in a time when I was still solely a PC gamer. Since coming back to consoles in force several years ago, I have yet to go back and play through those old Crash games, although I do have a fair interest in doing so. When Crash of the Titans, the first Crash adventure on the Xbox 360 came in for review, I was fairly excited. It looked like a fun, simple, 3D platformer that would make an excellent supplement to the more serious and hardcore titles of the season. Sure enough, that’s exactly what I got.