Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure

Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure (released as Crash Bandicoot XS in Europe) is a platform game developed by Vicarious Visions and published by Vivendi Universal Interactive Publishing for the Game Boy Advance. It was released in North America on February 25, 2002 and in Europe on March 15, 2002.

The Huge Adventure is the seventh installment in the Crash Bandicoot video game series and the first Crash Bandicoot game to be released on a handheld console. The game acts as an alternate sequel to the first four mainline games, and its story centers on a plot to shrink the Earth by the main antagonist, Doctor Neo Cortex, through the use of a gigantic weapon named the "Planetary Minimizer". The protagonist of the story, Crash Bandicoot, must gather Crystals in order to power a device that will return the Earth to its proper size, defeating Doctor Cortex and his minions along the way.

The game stemmed from an agreement between Universal Interactive Studios and Konami that enabled them to produce and publish (respectively) a Crash Bandicoot game for next-generation handheld game systems, ending the franchise's exclusivity to Sony-produced consoles. Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure received generally favorable reviews from critics. The game was praised for its graphics and overall design, but critics noted the game's lack of innovation.

Gameplay
Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure is a platform game in which the player controls Crash Bandicoot, who must gather 20 Crystals and reverse the shrinkage of the Earth at the hands of Doctor Neo Cortex, the main antagonist of the story. Much of the game takes place in a series of hubs, from which Crash can teleport to various areas of the Earth. Initially, only the first of four hubs is available for play. Each hub features five levels and a boss level. The goal in each level is to find and obtain a hidden Crystal. After completing all five levels in a hub, the boss level must be completed, in which Crash must defeat the boss character guarding the area. By defeating the boss, a new hub will be accessible for play. When all 20 Crystals are collected and the Earth has been enlarged to its proper size, the game is won.

Besides Crystals, Gems and Colored Gems can be collected for extra accomplishment. Gems are rewarded to the player if all of the crates in a level are broken open or if a secret area is completed. Colored Gems are found in special levels and lead to hidden areas. "Relics" can be won by re-entering a level where the Crystal has already been retrieved. To obtain a Relic, the player must initiate the "Time Trial" mode and race through a level in the pre-designated time displayed before entering a level. To begin a Time Trial run, the player must enter a level and activate the floating stopwatch near the beginning of the level to activate the timer; if the stopwatch is not touched, the level is played regularly. The player must then race through the level as quickly as possible. Scattered throughout the level are yellow crates with the numbers 1, 2 or 3 on them. When these crates are broken, the timer is frozen for the number of seconds designated by the box. Sapphire, Gold and Platinum Relics can be won depending on the player's final time.

At the beginning of the game, Crash has the ability to jump to navigate ledges, spin in a tornado-like fashion to break open crates and defeat enemies, deliver a body slam to break open tough objects and can either slide across the ground or crouch and crawl to get past low areas. Crash can expand on these abilities by defeating boss characters, often resulting in more powerful attacks or increased jumping and running prowess. Crash starts the game with six lives. Crash loses a life when he is struck by an enemy attack or suffers any other type of damage. More lives can be earned by instructing Crash to collect 100 "Wumpa Fruits" or break open a special crate to collect a life. Crash can be shielded from enemy attack by collecting an Aku Aku mask. Collecting three of these masks allows temporary invulnerability from all minor dangers.

Characters
Eight returning characters from previous Crash titles star in Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure. The protagonist of the game, Crash Bandicoot, is an anthropomorphic bandicoot who must reverse the shrinkage of the Earth caused by the main antagonist Doctor Neo Cortex. Crash's genius sister, Coco Bandicoot, is the creator of the machine necessary to reverse the effects of Cortex's "Planetary Minimizer". Aiding Crash is Aku Aku, an ancient wooden mask who can temporarily protect Crash from harm. The main antagonist of the series, Doctor Neo Cortex, is a mad scientist who shrinks the Earth down to the size of a grapefruit with his new "Planetary Minimizer". Overseeing Cortex's plot is Uka Uka, the evil twin brother of Aku Aku. Cortex's minions consist of Tiny Tiger, a hulking muscle-bound beast, Dingodile, a flamethrower-wielding dingo-crocodile hybrid and Doctor N. Gin, Cortex's cyborg right-hand man.

Story
In a space station orbiting the Earth, Uka Uka is upset with Doctor Neo Cortex for failing him once again, but Cortex promises a plan that will bring the Earth's inhabitants down to size. Cortex then introduces his Planetary Minimizer, which he immediately uses to shrink the Earth down to the size of a grapefruit. The situation is brought to Aku Aku's attention when Cortex taunts the now-microscopic people of Earth. When Aku Aku informs Crash of the Earth's predicament, Coco assumes that Cortex is using the Crystals to power his shrinking machine, and requests that Crash find the same kind of Crystals in various locations around the world, which she will use to build a device that will reverse the effects of Cortex's Minimizer.

After Crash fends off Dingodile, Doctor N. Gin and Tiny Tiger, Cortex decides to deal with Crash himself by firing the Planetary Minimizer at him. Unfortunately for him, Crash tricks him into shrinking the colored Gems that stabilize the Minimizer, causing it to malfunction. The unrestrained effects of the Minimizer fuse Cortex and the previous bosses together, creating a monster known as Mega-Mix, who chases Crash down the space station's hallway in an attempt to kill him. Fortunately, Crash escapes back to the Earth just in time for Coco to use the Crystals that he has gathered to return the Earth back to normal again. The Earth is returned to its original size, while the space station above Earth explodes and Cortex and the others escape in an escape pod.

Development
On September 21, 2000, Konami and Universal Studios announced that they had entered an agreement that would enable Konami to publish a Crash Bandicoot game for next-generation game systems, with Universal Interactive handling the production of the games. The Game Boy Color was originally included alongside the Game Boy Advance in the deal. The agreement served to break the Crash Bandicoot franchise's exclusivity to Sony-produced consoles and effectively made Crash Bandicoot a mascot character for Universal rather than Sony. That December, Vicarious Visions approached Universal and showed off some of their technology on the Game Boy Advance. Fairly impressed with their work, Universal asked Vicarious Visions to submit a concept. Liking the submitted concept, Universal commissioned a prototype; the prototype resembled a handheld version of the PlayStation Crash Bandicoot games. Vicarious Visions was then given developmental duties for the Game Boy Advance Crash Bandicoot game.

The game was tentatively titled Crash Bandicoot Advance and went through the titles Crash Bandicoot X/S and Crash Bandicoot: The Big Adventure before arriving at its final name. The game was developed over the course of nine months from conception to completion. The team working on the game expanded to as much as seven programmers at the height of the game's development. The graphics and animation for the game were created in Maya. Some of the original animation and textures from Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped were repurposed and used as a basis for the Game Boy Advance game. The sprite for the Crash Bandicoot character features between 1000 and 1500 frames of animation. The audio for the game was supplied by Shin'en Multimedia, with Manfred Linzner creating the sound effects and Todd Masten composing the music. Shin'en Multimedia was assisted by Universal Sound Studios while creating the game's audio. The game uses a static random access memory battery, allowing the player to save their progress. The game was designed with battery saving in mind from the beginning of production, as keeping track of all the data would prove extremely cumbersome with a password system.

Reception
In the United States, The Huge Adventure sold 750,000 copies and earned $19 million by August 2006. During the period between January 2000 and August 2006, it was the 26th highest-selling game launched for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS or PlayStation Portable in that country.

The Huge Adventure received generally favorable reviews from critics. Louis Bedigian of GameZone, praising many of the game's elements, concluded that the game was not overshadowed by the series' previous successful titles and offered a new experience. IGN's Craig Harris commented positively on the "solid controls and level design" and said that the game's overall design on the Game Boy Advance was "amazingly tight". Andrew Reiner of Game Informer, while critical of the short levels, praised the game for its graphical prowess. Four-Eyed Dragon of GamePro commended the game as "a superb-looking, straightforward platformer that no interested GBA gamer should miss." Scott Alan Marriott of Allgame ("All Game Guide" at the time) and Scott Osborne of GameSpy, while acknowledging the game's lack of innovation, stated that the translation of the graphics, gameplay and feel of the PlayStation Crash games onto the Game Boy Advance was executed well. However, Giancarlo Varanini of GameSpot cited the game's lack of innovation in a more negative manner. A Nintendo Power reviewer noted that the game's challenges were generally more difficult and sometimes more frustrating than those of the Mario games. Play Magazine's reviewer criticized the "straight-ahead" nature of the side-scrolling, but called it "a great, little game" otherwise. Electronic Gaming Monthly remarked that "Crash for the GBA is what the PS2 game wanted to be."