Now that Activision is owned by Microsoft, this is the perfect opportunity for them to make The Wrath of Cortex backwards compatible on Xbox Series X and S.
Everyone but those nitpicking reviewers liked Wrath of Cortex. None of their arguments against the game would equal a bad game as a whole. That's why all those reviewers got buried in the comments and abandoned their channels for saying stoopid shyt
Very good and fair review! I was a huge Crash Bandicoot fan growing up and I first got this on PS2 with the horrible load times and the Xbox version is definitely an improvement. I like this game. Don't love it, not better than the PS1 trilogy but it's a decent little platformer, except for the swimming levels, I'll be happy to never play those again lol
If you think the PS2 version was bad wait till you see the GameCube version One of the most hilariously bad ports ever The Xbox version is a lot nicer, but doesn’t really take advantage of the hardware since there’s still lots of per vertex lighting.
While 'Wrath of Cortex' isn't exactly "amazing", it's definitely a worthy entry in the 'Crash Bandicoot' anthology, & an important chapter to the character's legacy. What's more, it's tragic that it never became backwards-compatible on the newer, current-gen Xbox consoles, considering the original Xbox version was playable on the 360. It's even worse, considering MicroSoft, thru owning Activision, owns the Crash Bandicoot ip. Perhaps 'Wrath of Cortex' may be added to the list of back-compat titles (alongside the rest of the Crash Bandicoot & Spyro games games on Xbox & Xbox 360) if they ever decide to bring the program back. For preservation & accessibility's sake, at the very least, it ought to get ported to modern platforms or remastered by developer Toys 4 Bob.
I always felt this game was a bit underrated and aged better than some of the others. The fur still holds up very well, the graphic are overall very good for the Xbox, and they really pop in backwards compatibility mode on Xbox 360.
I think the ball rolling was a leftover from when Mark Cerny was in charge and definitely shows. For sure a good looking game with mostly good levels and those FUR Physics!
When I was editing this review I remembered how you brought up the fur physics in this game. I agree though there's some stuff here that you can tell are holdovers for sure.
i'll always love this game - the ps2 version may as well have been the first 3d platformer i ever played - but it definitely didn't age quite as well as maybe crash 2 or 3. i'll have to disagree with you on the cutscene animations. well, specifically the cutscene models. in general the character models in this one bring it down quite a lot (except maybe crash, crunch and coco) i personally have a few problems with camera positioning in several levels. they make heavy use of particle effects for various things, which is impressive from a technical standpoint, but sucks when several objects are just 2d billboards and hurt you when you enter their hitbox. depth of field issues, basically. i'd like to give a point for effort for the level scenarios. all levels (barring the two gauntlet levels and two underwater levels) have their own distinct theming, unlike the ps1 crashes which reused theming a fair bit. also, each level has its own bangin ost (which i think the ports slightly degrade, i recall in he gamecube version medieval madness uses the music from gauntlet due to looping issues. not sure about xbox), whereas the music was tied to the theme in warped. i also take issues with some of the auxiliary controls. moving while hanging takes a decade, while the sensitivity of the planes (and oh god the jeep in smokey and the bandicoot) are turned to 15 :D the development story behind this game is pretty interesting though, and gives some insights into why some things are as they are. weathering heights having an unfinished prelude using the glider in the files just titled 'airship' will always stay in my head rent free lmao, not to mention a more open roam camera system existing in the game whenever the cam can't find a node to latch onto. can be triggered in a few levels, i recall one of the castle levels in a nook with crates, the fire warp room boss fight when you just walk away from the powerup and i think the first level of the second warp room, if you manage to jump past the exit portal and slightly out of bounds overall though i agree with a 6/10 score. it's a bit average, but still a fun game. good video :)
Considering I played and beat all 3 of the OG PSX games I'm kind of shocked I never played this one lol. What's even crazier is that I own this on PS2 but I don't remember buying it and I know I never played it 🤣
Haha that's whats funny about being a game collector. Sometimes I'll look through my games and realize I had something that I thought was missing from my collection.
This game shaped the stuff I drew as a kid and actually has a bunch of cool designs. I never played the previous Crash games so I never really noticed any differences. Alot of people complain about the abilities being worse than the earlier games and the levels not being the best, but I love it all. The other games might be better, but this game had a sort of vibe I just loved, also actually a really good soundtrack.
I like this game, i grew up with the Xbox version in particular and have recently 100%'d the gamecube version tho ik the games not perfect and doesnt hold a candle to Crash 3 i thought the games very okay
Well I'm glad we are on the same wavelength for game choice! I'm glad you enjoyed the video. Also if you ever want to recommend anything thats fine. I have a giant list and when I get around to reviewing the game I like to include peoples names, it just depends on when I do it. The recommendations are there as a pool of games I could play but in no order or anything otherwise Id probably get crazy stressed.
"All of the voices are recognizable"... Yeah, I just now found out that Mark Hamill's voice is in the game. I don't know whether that makes the game better or worse. 😂
Nice review. Got myself a copy so will have to find the time to beat this one. Is there a difficulty spike later in the game? The ps1 titles got quite tuff late on.