Crash Bandicoot Wrath Of Cortex Loading Times

[Maribeth Seagers]

CrashBandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex is a Crash Bandicoot platformer. It is the sixth Crash Bandicoot game, the fourth mainline series game, and it was the first game to feature Crash Bandicoot on the PlayStation 2 in 2001. It was later ported to the GameCube and Xbox in 2002, making it his first multiplatform appearance. On December 4, 2007, the Xbox version was released onto the Xbox Live Marketplace as a downloadable game on the Xbox Originals Service.

In the game's story, the evil mask Uka Uka is enraged with Neo Cortex and his cronies for failing in the name of villainy. Focusing on defeating Crash Bandicoot, the talk of Cortex's secret superweapon comes up and the doctor reveals that he has created a strong warrior of unbelievable power. Requiring a power source, Uka Uka recommends the Elementals - a group of malevolent masks bent on causing global chaos. The kindhearted Aku Aku quickly finds out and confronts Uka Uka. Luckily, each Elemental can be placed back into their hibernation state with a total of five ancient crystals, so it is up to Crash and Coco Bandicoot to find them from different spots around the world with the use of Coco's VR Hub System whilst overcoming Cortex's superweapon.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex was originally intended to be designed by Mark Cerny (who designed all the games in the series thus far) and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was Mark's unnamed PS2 game under development. The game under Cerny's direction was to be a free-roaming title with puzzle elements that would see Crash traveling between different planets. In early 2000, when Universal approached Traveller's Tales to be the development team behind the game, Tales produced a 3-D rendered demo of Crash running through a volcanic level. Development of the game's engine began in mid-2000. On September 21, 2000, Universal Interactive and Konami announced that they had entered an agreement that would enable Konami to publish a Crash Bandicoot game for next-generation game systems, with Universal Interactive handling the production of the games. The agreement served to break the Crash Bandicoot franchise's exclusivity to Sony-produced consoles and effectively made Crash Bandicoot a mascot character for Universal rather than Sony. After Universal fell out with Cerny and Sony, Traveller's Tales was forced to alter the game from a free-roaming title to a standard Crash title. Traveller's Tales had to begin development of the game from scratch and were given only twelve months to complete the game.

The character Crunch Bandicoot was designed by Craig Whittle of Traveller's Tales and Sean Krankel of Universal. The concept of battling mini-bosses within the game's levels was dropped to uphold the fast and frantic pace of the series' gameplay. Multiplayer capability was also considered before being dropped. An earlier draft of the story featured an alternate version of the game's climax and ending, which involved Crash battling Crunch in a mechanical robot suit. At the end of the fight, Crunch would destroy Crash's suit with a bolt of electricity. The resulting debris would render Cortex unconscious, destroy the remote control device controlling Crunch and start an electrical fire in the space station. As the Bandicoots escape to resume their beach-going vacation, the ruins of the space station would crash-land onto the island of Cortex's original settlement, conveniently allowing Cortex and Uka Uka to resume their world domination bids.

The majority of the characters and vehicles in the game were built and textured by Nicola Daly and animated by Jeremy Pardon. The main game systems and game code as a whole were coded by John Hodskinson. The game's music is composed by Andy Blythe and Marten Joustra of Swallow Studios. A rearranged version of the original Crash Bandicoot theme by Mutato Muzika also appears in the game. The game's sound effects were created by Ron Horwitz, Tom Jaeger, John Robinson and Harry Woolway of Universal Sound Studios. The game's voice actors were cast and directed by Margaret Tang. Only two of the series' original voice actors reprised their roles for the game: Clancy Brown voices the dual role of Doctor Neo Cortex and Uka Uka, while Mel Winkler provides the voice of Aku Aku. Debi Derryberry inherited the role of Coco Bandicoot from Hynden Walch, while Corey Burton voices the returning villains Doctor N. Gin and Doctor Nefarious Tropy, taking over for Brendan O'Brien and Michael Ensign respectively. Kevin Michael Richardson provides the voice of new character Crunch Bandicoot, while the Elementals, consisting of Rok-Ko, Wa-Wa, Py-Ro and Lo-Lo, are voiced by Thomas F. Wilson, R. Lee Ermey, Mark Hamill and Jess Harnell respectively.

The Xbox version of the game was announced by Universal Interactive on January 31, 2002. The Xbox version features reduced loading times and improved graphics that take advantage of the Xbox's console's more powerful hardware.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex is a platform game in which the player controls Crash and his younger sister Coco, who must gather 25 crystals and defeat the main antagonists of the story: Doctor Neo Cortex, his new superweapon Crunch Bandicoot and Crunch's power sources, the renegade Elementals. Much of the game takes place in a "Virtual Reality (VR) Hub System" created by Coco to help Crash gather the crystals.

The VR Hub System is split up into five "VR Hubs"; initially, only the first VR Hub is available. Each VR Hub has five teleportation portals to different levels. The goal in each level is to find and obtain the Crystal hidden in the area. In some levels, the Crystal will be located at the end of a level or must be earned by completing a specific challenge. After completing all five levels in a VR Hub, a sixth teleportation portal to a boss level with Crunch will appear. By defeating the boss, the next VR Hub will become available for play. When all 25 Crystals are collected and Doctor Cortex and Crunch are defeated, the game is won.

Crash and Coco start the game with four lives. They lose a life when they are hit by an enemy, or suffer any other type of damage. More lives can be earned by instructing Crash or Coco to collect 100 Wumpa Fruit, or by breaking open a special crate to collect a life. Crash and Coco can be shielded from an enemy attack by collecting an Aku Aku mask. Collecting three of these masks allows temporary invulnerability from all minor dangers such as enemies and Nitro Crates. If Crash or Coco run out of lives, the game is over. However, the game can be continued by selecting "Yes" at the "Continue?" screen. Selecting "No" at the continue screen just takes you back to the title screen.

Each level (except vehicle levels, Cortex Vortex, and Knight Time) contains a "Bonus Platform" that leads to a special bonus area, where the player must navigate through a maze and collect everything in sight. Once a bonus area is completed, it cannot be played again.

Besides crystals, gems and colored gems can be collected for 100% completion. Gems are rewarded to the player if all of the crates in a level are broken open or if a secret area is completed. Colored Gems are found in special levels and lead to hidden areas.

Relics can be won by re-entering a level where the Crystal has already been retrieved. To obtain a Relic, the player must initiate the Time Trial mode and race through a level in the per-designated time displayed before entering a level. To begin a Time Trial run, the player must enter a level and activate the floating stopwatch near the beginning of the level to activate the timer; if the stopwatch is not touched, the level can be played regularly. The player must then race through the level as quickly as possible. Scattered throughout the level are yellow crates with the numbers 1, 2 or 3 on them. When these crates are broken, the timer is frozen for the number of seconds designated by the box.

As no lives are lost in the Time Trial mode, the level can be played through as often as the player desires. Sapphire, Gold and Platinum Relics can be won depending on how low the player's final time is. The first five Relics the player receives unlocks access to a secret level. Every five Relics thereafter open up another level in the Secret Warp Room, which can only be accessed once the game is beaten. The levels in the Secret Warp Room must be won before the game can be 100% completed.

After the events of Crash Bandicoot: Warped, somewhere outside of Earth's orbit, Uka Uka holds a "bad guy convention" in a new space station that currently acts as the base for Doctor Neo Cortex and his minions N. Gin, N. Tropy, Tiny Tiger and Dingodile. Uka Uka denounces the group as "imbeciles, fools," and "nincompoops" and questions their ability to do anything right. Unveiling a line graph moving heavily downward, Uka Uka announces that the group's track record for spreading evil is "pathetic." Doctor Cortex proclaims their innocence and that Crash Bandicoot is really at fault. Irritated, Uka Uka declares that he will not let anything stand in the way of evil, especially not a "brainless orange marsupial." He concludes that Crash must be eliminated. As he speaks, Tiny attempts to clutch a hologram of Crash Bandicoot that has appeared over the middle of the table, only to have it disappear in his hand. Doctor N. Gin nervously reminds Uka Uka that Crash always finds a way to defeat them and contemplates that perhaps Crash is merely too capable for them. However, Uka Uka at this point will not take excuses and threatens the group into thinking of one good plan on the spot. As Doctor Cortex disgustedly laments his situation, Doctor Nefarious Tropy recalls a secret weapon Cortex has been working on in his laboratory. Although Cortex denies anything of that sort, Doctor N. Gin does not catch on and reminds Cortex that Tropy is referring to the super-secret weapon Cortex was laboring over day and night ever since the last time Crash defeated him, ignoring all of Cortex's non-vocal attempts to tell him to keep quiet on the subject. Uka Uka impatiently ends the discussion and asks the group what they have planned. With no choice at hand, Cortex decides to reveal the existence of his genetically-engineered weapon, which he claims possesses unbelievable strength. However he reports that the weapon is missing a power source. In a scene only present in the instruction manual for the game, Uka Uka tells the group a story about a battle that happened thousands of years ago between the Ancient Ancestors and the Elementals, a group of renegade masks who controlled the natural elements of earth, water, fire and air and used their powers to ravage the globe. The Ancient Ancestors were able to imprison the Elementals through the use of the Crystals, putting the Elementals in a state of hibernation. Cortex deduces that if they unleash the Elementals' destructive energy, they'd have enough power to bring the secret weapon to life. The weapon would be capable of crushing mountains, demolishing entire cities and, as Uka Uka hopes, wiping Crash Bandicoot off the face of the Earth forever. Cortex laughs sinisterly as he prepares for Crash Bandicoot to face his wrath.

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