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Crash Twinsanity is worse than Assassin's Creed 3. It belongs high up on the "Worst Things Humanity Ever Made" list along with the Star Wars prequels, nuclear waste, Agent Orange, and Tim Tebow. Everything about this game is torture, which is made even worse because it has potential. There's a mix of good ideas and the terrible ideas, none of which work well. This review needs to be a little more in than my other coverage of the Crash games because what's wrong with it boils down to everything. 

The most important of these decisions was to rush the game. It's pretty ironic that both my favorite (Knights of the Old Republic 2) and least favorite (this) games from 2004 were rushed. Even their flaws from being rushed are pretty similar. Lack of polish and clearly cut content being the biggest 2, but both also made me see their franchise in a new way. Kotor 2 tackled Star Wars in such a unique way with really deep themes and incredible ideas. Twinsanity made me realize the people in charge don't give two shits about Crash. 

Let's look at how the game starts for instance:

Okay, first that's fucking creepy. I had nightmares about that when I first played it, it just looks terrible. It's just a terrible joke, but more important is why it doesn't work as a joke. The best way to illustrate that would to compare it to the source material they took inspiration from. And by that I mean RIPPED OFF

Ah, Bugs Bunny. You're so much better than any of this garbage. Now, here's a few reasons why Bugs can pull this off while Cortex can't. First off is that Bugs is dressing as some random woman usually to try and seduce whoever's after him. So to put it bluntly, these guys are thinking with their dicks and don't notice that it's actually Bugs.

Cortex, on the other hand, is impersonating Crash's sister. Crash knows what his sister looks and sounds like, which should be a dead giveaway. And he doesn't even put any effort, Bugs covers up his tail and his ears, which are the usual giveaway when the charade is up. Cortex on the other hand? His effort to get in drag is lazier than Adam Sandler's. He doesn't even shave his beard, why doesn't Crash notice this? Bugs also gets super into the role, Cortex slips in and out of his voice. This might seem like nitpicking, but it's lazy and that ends up being a central theme of the game.

Like, take this joke from example (while I'll admit, made me laugh quite a bit when I first played it).

See, that's funny. The music is really fitting and Crash's facial expressions are perfect. It even leads to Crash using Cortex as a snowboard, which is actually a funny scenario. However, let's see what happens hours later in the game, towards the fucking end.

Why? That joke was funny the first time, why did you ahve to fucking repeat it all over again? Why couldn't you use a new joke, maybe have Crash get that look in his eyes again and Cortex starts to panic or something different? That's just pure lazy, plain and simple. I loved when all the news reporters got together to fight in Anchorman, but I didn't want it to happen later on in the movie. Granted, they repeated it successfully in 2, but that was a callback to something years ago, not recycling.

And there are very few things worse than lazy jokes. Lazy acting can be unintentionally funny. Same goes for lazy writing, lazy directing, and well, everything except jokes. But when a joke is lazy, it just makes you groan because they're ruining something meant to let you have fun. Other aspects are not always meant to let you have fun, so you can when they botch it, but with jokes, it's never fun when they don't give a rat's ass.

But anyways, this is a game so let's go over why it fails there and not just in the writing. The game actually has quite a bit of variety that it fucks up....I don't want to say equally bad because some are worse than others but they're all terrible. Every last one of them. Let's start with the platforming though.

Now, the first thing I felt going into this game was how it felt wrong. Not just in the design shift either. Levels were set up more like Jak and Daxter than Crash Bandicoot, a few open areas full of secrets connected by more linear areas with secrets of their own. Okay, that's cool. I'm all for change. But the way the controls feel are what really felt wrong.

There's an area full of nitro crates and on top rests a gem in the beginning, for instance. Then you see a beach ball nearby and logic dictates that you need to spin the ball to the crates to blow them up and clear the area. But rolling the ball feels so awkward and imprecise, you can't move them exactly where you want to and it teleports back to its initial spot after being away too long, even if you're rolling it. Turns out, those are there for no fucking reason and you have to lure animals to run into the crates, ones which have very little indication of what to do.

Things like this are a little too common in Twinsanity. The controls can feel so awkward in every scenario that you can never tell whether doing a task feels too awkward because it's poorly designed or you're doing it the wrong way. Which may be one of the worst flaws a game could have. I'll need to body slam an enemy in a hole to move him to another area, but miss even though my shadow was above him before and assume he's at the last spot when the controls fucked up. I'll spin next to an enemy, get hit, and assume he's immune. Fuck. That.

While I mentioned gems though, they give stupid rewards for the gems. Not in the "Wow, this is disappointing" sense either. Take the gems which award cutscenes for instance. Initially they'll be Crash and Cortex doing goofy shit then be cutscenes you've seen. Then when they run out of cutscenes, they show you cutscenes you HAVEN'T seen yet for getting a gem. Why? Why would you give a fucking cutscene we haven't seen yet? 

Now, let's go to the first boss fight against a giant bandicoot mech. It starts off just avoiding things until you can hit a weak point. Simple. Then you have to reflect things after avoiding things. Then after you destroy all the weapons, he just shoots at you for you to reflect at him three times. There's no challenge or fun to it, it should just end after taking out his weapons. It's just mindless filler.

Now, we have shit design, shit cutscenes, and shit secrets. Let's now go over each individual element to explain why it doesn't work at all.

Crash Platforming- Besides what's mentioned, there's the worst point in how imprecise it feels. It's like jumping in a Bethesda game when you want to get up a hill bad. Then the platforming challenges are based way too much on trial and error without a life system that supports trial and error, combined with shit checkpoints. There's also combat sections every now and then even though you can only spin and slide, like a beat em up without anything that makes a beat em up fun.

Crash and Cortex together- I'll admit, these two being stuck together because they won't let go of a crystal is a funny idea. But most of these bits are just horribly simplistic puzzles where you just need to throw Cortex to flip a switch. The "challenge" in these just comes from not being able to tell where you need to be to throw Cortex to this area. 

Cortex- He has a gun with horrible aiming. He can also barely jump but there's still platforming expected of him. Just awful.

Nina- I couldn't make it far enough to play as her my second go. I remember her being one of the least frustrating elements though, but I had a higher tolerance back then than I do now. But god damn did her inclusion in the game feel unnecessary.

Crash protecting Cortex- Cortex is getting hurt or chased by something and running away. These bits are way too time sensitive, often the only way to get through is to have seen every obstacle ahead of you before. Some are simple, but it's impossible to get through any of these your first time without playing it before.

Snowboarding- Like Nina, I didn't get here, but didn't remember it being as bad as the others. Just playing an hour of this game to write this thing was enough torture.

Crash and Cortex fighting in a ball- Again, imprecise controls. What's even worse is that they're designed with Nitro crates in areas where you have no reasonable way of seeing them coming thanks to being in a tunnel which obscures your vision. And what's even worse is that Nitro crates kill him no matter how many masks he has. 

On that note speak of Aku Aku. Before, he made a loud noise each time you opened one of his mask crates, you knew you got one. When you got three, there was loud, super exciting music that made you feel invincible, know how long it would last, and sound effects that would make do the same thing every time you took out an enemy. Now, however, there's no music so you have no idea how long Aku Aku has been lasting.

So that's Twinsanity. I don't have the burning rage I did with AC3 because that wound has healed more, but god damn this game is so terrible. It's developers not thinking of how to make a scenario work, not polishing controls, not giving any respect to the franchise. Hell, there's one fucking bit where Cortex says they were going to go somewhere, but it got cut. They didn't give two shits how lazy it was. Fuck this game.