Crash of the Titans First Look

Crash Bandicoot may have started his career as an unofficial mascot for the original PlayStation, but he's too big for just one system. The wacky furry critter's made the leap across all the platforms in the past few years, as a platform hero, a go-kart racer...even most recently as a party game host on the Nintendo DS. Sierra's ready to give the ten year old marsupial a fresh beginning with an upcoming adventure: Crash of the Titans, a different style of game that incorporates both old and new Crash Bandicoot games for this Wii-centric experience.

Developed by Radical Entertainment, this action-focused adventure not only gives Crash a whole new look, but changes the core mechanic of the gameplay style that most Crash Bandicoot fans are familiar with. Sierra recently let us have a look at an early version of Crash of the Titans in action on the Wii so we could see some of the ideas in motion on the Nintendo console.

The big change in the Crash Bandicoot design is the shift in game mechanics. Where Crash used to be a platform hero, in Crash of the Titans he's now taking a more "physical" role in this punch-and-kick focused brawler style of design. In Radical's take, Crash must work his way through the 3D environments, beating up on evil critters using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk combination. Punches and kicks will take down the smaller enemies, but the key design element in Crash is the ability to "jack" enemies and use their specific attributes to take down the bigger creatures. As the developer put it, there's a "food chain" device where Crash won't be able to take down the gigantic creatures -- instead, he can take down the smaller ones, jack them when they're stunned, then use that creature to knock out even bigger creatures so Crash can jack them...and so on.

The level progression focuses on the player's ability to "attack and jack" enemies -- some routes will be locked by giant gates that can only be knocked down by the big beasts, and some routes will be blocked off by doors that need to be opened by triggering targets with enemies who can shoot. There will be fifteen different creatures to fight and jack, and players will earn the ability to play as these creatures once they're unlocked -- Crash will wear a "suit" of that creature to take advantage of their capabilities.

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