Because so many boards on this forum are console-specific I decided this is the best place to put a Crash discussion thread.

First off: Upcoming Crash game this year?

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/01/06/redesig...

This is definitely new art of the Bandicoot. This is extremely exciting to fans disappointed by the cancellation of the 2010 Crash game of which images were leaked. (look them up on Youtube or here: http://hpzr.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=games&action=di... )

Also, if you want to support the return of Crash you can sign this petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/bring-back-bandicoot.html

I'm not really a fan of Crash's new look. I liked his other design with the tattoos. Maybe it could be a new Crash Bandicoot title in the works or just a poster and people are reaching. Oh, what if it's a skylander toy? That would be kinda cool..

Crash Bandicoot has gone down the cr*pper the moment Naughty Dog took their hands off their franchise. I have no hope that Crash will ever return to his former glory, but at least I have five games to remember and play.

Is Crash a Skylander? He looks like one now.

I liked the original when I was younger. But it has aged horribly.

@Knux: now that's unfairly harsh. Radical entertainment put a lot of heart into the Titans games, and TwinSanity would have been great if they were allowed more development time by the publisher.
@CactusJackson: I think the original has help up better than the second or third game. No gimmicks, just hard-as-nails, solid platforming. It's held up better than Super Mario 64, its Nintendo rival.

Maybe to you but it's nearly impossible not to get overly frustrated with the original nowadays. And comparing it to Super Mario 64 isn't helping. Anyone can pick up 64 and have fun with it since it's fairly easy to adjust to while, Bandicoot suffers from poor hit detection and leaps of faith due to its choppy 32 bit graphics.

Running forward or backwards is a pain as I cannot tell where I'm going to land. The water fall levels with those lily pads are a fantastic example of this. Icy physics also ruined precise jumps and maneuvers. The 2D levels were fun, but not worthwhile.

I think Warped is better than the second game which is better than the original. I love all three but the later two are just leaps and bounds ahead of the original in terms of overall structure...

Oh god no. As someone who owns an immense trove of Spyro the dragon merchandise, including a PS1 set with Year of the Dragon and an actual PS1, a French Collector's box(which I believe was released only to the press), Japanese versions of Spyro The Dragon(plus the Japanese demo of that one), Season of Ice, Fusion, and another copy of Japanese fusion, the Collectors' edition, most of the guides(including the Japanese ones), more than a few demos that were bought just for the Spyro ones inside, the actual Spyro demos, some advertisement discs, and at least twenty plushies...
Skylanders killed Spyro.
Not just because of his design, which I actually like. And I like Skylanders too. I love Skylanders on its own as a game. But I think it murdered so much of the charm Spyro had, and just turned him into generic hero guy. One of his lines is "For Skylands!". When Skylanders should have just been its own franchise instead... All it did to him was wreck any chance that he might get his own game again, after four years. Upcoming five.
And I would simply hate to see Crash the same way. I've said it a few times, in my opinion, reviving him like that was a fate worse than death.
Regardless, like I mentioned on Crash Mania Forums, Toy Fair is in February, Skylanders 3 is probably gonna be revealed there, and if Crash is in it they WILL reveal him straight away to generate hype, so that's pretty much the moment of truth.

@Nibelilt: Exactly my thoughts, except the parts about liking Spyro's Skylanders design and liking Skylanders. They just threw Spyro into Skylanders to increase its recognition. Apart from his name being on the box, he's no more significant than the other 32 characters. Doing that to Crash would be very disappointing.

Here's some thoughts I had, because I know you care:
1.Crash is standing on a platform
2.He has huge arms like a lot of the skylanders. These proportions and stlyes would fit along with the SKylanders.
Bad news.
However, he's not standing on a Skylander platform--it doesn't look like the Skylanders official art. And the Crash logo on the poster hopefully keeps the Skylanders at bay.

I think he's just standing on a random island(perhaps a hint to the islands map making a comeback?). The platform he's on doesn't match any of the Elements that are established in the franchise.
Of course, the fact it's got a vanilla CRASH BANDICOOT title could mean nothing. The original title for Skylanders didn't even mention the word Skylanders at all. It was originally called simply Spyro's Kingdom. This could very much be a similar situation...
Heck, for all the speculation going around, this could be a simple HD remake of the originals(VV have done ports for Activision before and he looks so close to the original version I wouldn't rule that out entirely). It really could be anything.
But considering VV took it off and gave no word it's almost certainly a game of some sort as opposed to them just hanging it up for no real reason...

Edit: I forgot to mention that if you look to the far right of the original image you can spot what might be another Crash Bandicoot poster. You can just barely see what appears to be his foot on it. If somebody looks around, maybe we can get a picture with that in it which might be able to shed a bit of light on this project.

I think the best Crash game was #2. And your not changing my mind, so ha
However, Warped is nearly equal. The reason Warped doesn't get to be flat out equal? Them penguins and ice levels, I missed those for years when Crash 2 broke. Warped has Dingodile though.. That skyrockets it.

As for the new art.. I'll pass. So many bad versions of Crash that the only way I'd even consider buying a new one is if they released one with the old style models, and old style levels.

Crash 2 and 3 and CTR had the art down perfect - the only thing that SHOULD be done on that end is bringing an HD version of the models used in those games, with the jaggies evened out.. Wrath of Cortex, despite being a PS2 Game, looked worse than the PS1. (seriously, look at cortex and tell me he looks better, if you can)

Also: First time I played Crash 1 was when I was a kid. I never played it again though I wondered what happened to that game. I'm finally playing it again - and your right! it is tough as nails. I rarely go a minute without losing a life, the controls are just that little bit different from the later games that I keep getting owned.

Anyone remember Crash Twinsanity? That game was awesome, I played the heck out of it.

I played it! Wasn't a shining example, but of all the Crash Games that came after Naughty Dog left, it felt like it had the most potential, and it felt like it was done right. But on the other hand - Twinsanity felt like it wasn't fine tuned.

I played it! Wasn't a shining example, but of all the Crash Games that came after Naughty Dog left, it felt like it had the most potential, and it felt like it was done right. But on the other hand - Twinsanity felt like it wasn't fine tuned.

@Nibelilt

I don't see it that way. I mean if activision was going to give Spyro his own game. They would have done it. At least like this you can still play as some of the favorite characters, Spyro and Cynder. I think Skylanders is good for the new generation of gamers. The ones who didn't grow up in the 90s or early 2000s. It let's them get to know Spyro and keeps him somewhat relevant. But with the release of "Skylander Giants" they drop the Spyro name. If they do release a Skylanders 3 with Crash Bandicoot. I'd buy just to play as Crash again.

I'm going through Warped after some years right now on my PSP. I'm not sure which game I like best. I'm sort of at a situation similar to @xThomas because I really like the sewer levels in Crash 2 and I miss them. I actually really like the Titans games, even though they don't feel like original Crash and aren't nearly as good.

I think Warped has too many Egyptian-era levels, and not enough "watery" levels(I mean as in gloomy stormy water like in the rainy woods levels from 2- the only one that I can remember being in Warped right now is Gee Wiz), which honestly drags it down for me a bit. So currently, just currently, I like Cortex Strikes Back slightly better.
I remember I liked Warped more than 2 when I was young, and I stil haven't finished it yet, so that may change depending on what the rest of the levels (and the secret levels) are like. I like the Relics in Warped a lot and I think it's a great game even without them but I just like the level design of the second game more so far, and I feel like the variety in their order was also distributed better rather than having two Egyptian levels in one world. I think the reason I liked Cortex Strikes Back less than Warped may have had something to do with the fact my first copy was a pirate one and wouldn't load Plant Food, forcing me to stop, though...

@Chobi The problem is that Spyro was only shoehorned into Skylanders to generate hype and skyrocket the popularity of the game ("oh hey, it's Spyro!") and had utterly no importance to the extent that he showed up in two cutscenes in the first game and wasn't even mentioned in the story of the second unless you chose to use him. With Crash it would be a similar situation. Some fans will buy it just because it has a Crash reboot. Your comment proves that. The root of the problem is that they don't need to chuck old characters in, and I'm sure Skylanders would have been successful without Spyro with enough advertisement anyway(to be fair, I can see why they added him in to reduce the risk of total failure of the concept, but they don't need to add Crash in now because it's still doing well). Even if, when made into a Skylander, they had fun gameplay, I think anyone would prefer to see new old-style games from the characters, so why put them in Skylanders?
And I really doubt they would have given Spyro his own game. This is ACTIVISION we're talking about, after all. They certainly had time to though: various Skylanders were designed before any descision to add Spyro was made. Yet, fun fact: they were given the choice between putting in Spyro or Crash. So maybe you are right. I don't know, I'm not a developer.
(Also, I actually hate Cynder. )

Crash Bash I never really liked. Warped I used to play a lot. Never gave much attention to 1 and 2 or CTR.

Crash Bandicoot 2 and Warped are the best games in the series imo. I loved Crash Team Racing as well

ctr > Mario Kart?

sound effects in both were funny. Maybe Mario Kart feels just that little bit more everyone can play vs ctr.

@NinFreak
Play Crash Bandicoot 2. It's a great game. Definitely one of the best of all time. If you liked vehicles and riding animal levels in Crash 3, there's good ones in Crash 2 as well. Ride a bear, drive a jet ski, and even use a rock it.
The rest of the levels also amaze.. Well apart from the two snowball chase levels (not to be confused with the epic third room chase level). those kind of sucked.

I love Crash Bandicoot. My favorite game is Twinsanity. It was just so fun and charming. The soundtrack was awesome too. I really hope that poster might be a new Crash. His design should have never changed, but it's better than that stupid Titans design.