When my family was still together, we didn’t really do the whole extended family thing. My cousins were either too old or too young to hang out with, and most of my other relatives lived interstate or overseas. So when my family decided we were going to spend Christmas in Adelaide with my auntie and uncle, my brother and I were kind of bummed out. We complained that there would be nothing to do but hang out with our auntie’s dogs for a week, so our parents caved and let us bring the Playstation along. Which was great, because it turned out there really was nothing to do down there.

I’ll always remember this trip because of three things:

1. It was during the drive down that I heard Cher’s ‘Believe’ for the first time and was certain she was a man.
2. I had a stomach bug at one point and requested that someone rent Good Burger on VHS in order to nurse me back to health. It worked.
3. It was the Christmas that my brother and I got Crash Bandicoot 3.

It was a pretty great Christmas overall, because I also received the ‘cool blue’ hair mascara Barbie and went to town dousing my hair in goopy baby blue lines. But Crash Bandicoot 3 was something else. My brother and I were relatively new to the series, we’d played a bit of the second game at a friend’s place but hadn’t really had a good chunk of time with it. Between Crash Bandicoot 3 and Abe’s Exoddus, this was a very short period of time where my brother and I played games together instead of against each other.

What was so great about Crash Bandicoot? I can understand that people who grew up with Mario games don’t see the appeal of Crash Bandicoot, or similar franchises like Croc, Gex or Spyro. Especially when it was a time when the market was flooded with mascot-based platformers after Sonic had taken off. But I feel these games offered of a somewhat interesting twist on a tried and tested formula. It was a near perfect fusion of Mario and Sonic that hinted at Naughty Dog’s future successes. While they may not have done anything particularly ground-breaking about the level design, it de-constructs platforming archetypes in a way that makes the franchise seem like a well-oiled machine. A lot of love clearly went into these games, even if the formula had been refined to the point of sterility by the time Naughty Dog handed the series over to new developers after Crash Team Racing.

In terms of 3D platforming, it was quite linear. Some levels had branching paths, or extra hard ‘death routes’ that could be explored for an extra gem or two, but that was the extent of your freedom. Crash Bandicoot had the fluidity of Sonic’s mechanics, but offered finer control overall. After Super Mario 64’s release, platforming games were scrambling to keep up. While Super Mario 64 was almost open world in terms of level progression, Crash Bandicoot kept the player on a relatively short leash. The linearity in Crash Bandicoot worked to its advantage, it kept the level design concise and you were likely to play stages two or three times over to unlock everything. The array of bonus stages, easter eggs and gameplay styles set Crash Bandicoot apart from Mario and Sonic where Croc and Gex failed to emulate with bland platforming. Not saying that I didn’t enjoy these games at the time, but the level design and control in a lot of the other 3D platformers at the time was uninspired. The art style was expertly refined by the third game, offering surprisingly lush worlds for the Playstation and I still think the visuals hold up pretty well, even today.

Crash Bandicoot 3 had big shoes to fill. While the first game had been too punishing in terms of save points and lacking a wide range of mechanics, Crash Bandicoot 2 introduced hub-like ‘warp rooms’ which gave players freedom to progress through levels as they see fit. You rode a jet board! Polar bears! There was even a jet pack level! Naughty Dog ramped it up with all sorts of cool gameplay gimmicks and it worked. So when Crash Bandicoot 3 came out, we had high expectations. We’d only really played a bit of the second game, but my brother and I were absolutely blown away. But what I hadn’t expected, was the chance to play as Crash’s sister, Coco. At a time where one of my only options for a playable female character was Lara Croft, this was incredibly exciting. Having the chance to play as a girl, who wore overalls and carried a pink laptop was beyond my wildest dreams. Sure, Coco’s levels were few and far in between, but they were there and that meant the world to me. It was a time where I was repeatedly told that video games were for boys and that I should grow up, yet here was a relatable female character that was close to my age. It felt like huge middle finger to all the kids in my class at school who made fun of me for enjoying games.

I loved the levels where you played as Coco riding Pura on the Great Wall, and the fact that you could speed through the entire level in twenty seconds gave me such a rush! I was a pretty big fan of the Egyptian levels as well, particularly the ‘Tomb Wader’ level with the water puzzles. I’m not usually a fan of water levels, but the deep sea diving stages were surprisingly fun too, if not a little stressful. Most of the time, I’d leave the water levels for my brother. We tried to split the levels between us based on character, and our skills. My brother was better at making difficult jumps and racing stages, where as I was better than him at boss fights and getting relics. It was a rare display of teamwork, considering we usually fought over whose turn it was to play. But once it came down to getting the relics, we got competitive. I’d try and fill up the top three records to wipe his best time out of the scoreboard and he’d do the same. The teamwork kind of crumbled and we were back to fighting over who would get to play the future city stages.

Sadly, this was the last canon Crash Bandicoot game worth playing. My brother and I loved Crash Team Racing, and I even sunk a few hours into Crash Bash – though that was because it was the only Playstation game I had at one stage, so it was more likely desperation. Once Naughty Dog had moved onto other franchises, we kind of went off platformers. I even stopped playing games with the same kind of feverish joy that I used to, and moved onto casual PC gaming. It was a dark time indeed. But of course, that wouldn’t last for long.