Crash: Mind Over Mutant?
Gentle reader…
I need a few explanations as to just what the hell this is.
As I was compiling my previous lists of completed games I somehow came across Crash: Mind Over Mutant. Why do I feel like so many of my childhood games are being brutally raped?
As if these weird seventh generation Sonic games weren’t bad enough.
Now I will digress; I know one should never bash something they have not tried. In general it seems the new Crash games have gottne somewhat decent reviews. But my feelings still remain mixed.
I can’t help but wonder, who is this strange marsupial? This is not the goofy creature I have come to know and love. This, this appears to be some knock-off, rendered more hip for the younger generation. This is not the Crash who I have helped stumble over Nitrous boxes and have raced vehemently in the attempt to get all the relics and gems. This is not the heavy-browed, big-grinned bandicoot I remember.
If anything, this new Crash appears to be quite frightening.
I think I feel most offended because this hits so close to home. Crash Bandicoot Warped was the first game we had for our Playstation (that came with it, actually) and even before we had our own we would play the first and second over at our cousin’s house. Playing the game again (I’m determined to get 100% this time around) only reminded me of how incredibly fun those games were, and it’s just a shame that young new gamers will probably never experience the games the same way.
As with most game sequels they seem to be dumbing down the content, so watered down that newer generations have absolutely no ideas where the roots lay. Case in point; over Christmas break my younger cousins got a Wii, their first gaming consul. While playing Mario Kart Wii with them two of my cousins got into an argument about Yoshi about how to properly pronounce his name, continually calling him “Yashi.” As I’m playing (pathetically, I might add— so used to Mario Kart 64 and even the GBA version, my Wii skills are not quite up to par) I realize, these kids don’t even know who the characters are. Mario, Wario, Peach, Toad, Yoshi, it all goes right over their little heads. Which then made me feel incredibly old.
Though some of the next gen consuls are really quite amazing (oh what I would do for an Xbox 360…) it seems like we are steadily loosing a lot of great games as time goes by. I don’t know if I ever felt this so much before— so many people in my age range have reverted back to older systems almost for nostalgia purposes, keeping older games alive through emulators and finds in resale game shops. From this I can only wonder if the next generation will follow suit, or if a whole generation of games will steadily be phased out.
On top of that, seeing sequels to older games that have strayed so far from the original leaves a slightly bitter sense of betrayal. I’m eternally confounded by the Rayman Raving Rabbids commercials, wondering just what the hell they even have to do with the Rayman I remember. But from this I can only wonder about the generation before my own, watching the evolution of games like Mario and Final Fantasy over time.
Until then I, myself, have no qualms with reverting backwards to older systems, discovering games that I wouldn’t have access to otherwise or the games that I played as a kid. This one’s to you, Crash.
