Videogame luminaries making the leap to 'next-gen' gaming can be a tricky jump; just ask anyone who dared play the 3D disaster known as Sonic The Hedgehog. Like Sonic, Crash Bandicoot has a long lineage prior to making the jump to the 360, with Crash Of The Titans marking the fourteenth game in the series. Thankfully, that is where the similarities between Sonic and Crash's first foray into the land of the 360 begin and end.
The game plays much in the same way gamers fondly remember it. Smashing crates, collecting fruit, and killing baddies remain your objectives, with your main task remaining ending Cortex's tyrannical reign. This installment features two main additions to the world of Crash.
Rather than collecting coins from broken crates, Crash is collecting blue glowing 'mojo' pellets. Each time you collect a piece of 'mojo' you see the amount of 'mojo' you have and a circle filling up, like a pie in reverse. When the 'mojo' pie is full, Crash automatically gains a new or upgraded ability. Sometimes it is something as simple as grinding longer when land surfing on the Aku Aju mask (done at any point with Crash airborne by hitting the right-trigger), and other times it is a new combo attack to use when battling enemies.
Crash's fighting abilities greatly improve through the collection of 'mojo' and learning new moves. Players who ignore the typical Crash gameplay element of smashing crates and collection anything the enemies drop will find themselves in trouble later in the game. As the game moves forward, the enemies Crash encounters become increasingly difficult to beat without the use of slick combos to break through their defenses.
The other main addition to the franchise is Crash's ability to 'jack' large enemies. While the small minions dissolve into 'mojo' pellets immediately after you beat them, larger enemies stagger around with a halo of stars circling their heads. Hitting the 'B' button when near the stunned baddie with allow Crash to jump on their shoulders and place the Aku Aku mask over their face; giving you control over the large enemy like a marionette.
Each of the fifteen enemies that Crash can 'jack' has their own set of unique attacks (visible by hitting the 'back' button), strengths, and weaknesses. Each enemy you encounter seems to get progressively larger and more difficult to take down. Many times, Crash will have to 'jack' a smaller enemy in order to stun a slightly larger baddie. 'Jacking' your way up the food chain is a frequent and often challenging portion of the game.
The game also lays out several environmental challenges that need a special attack from certain large enemies to clear them. Some of the weaker enemies make up for their lack of brute strength by providing ranged attacks to fire at minions, door-activator targets, and other large baddies. The system is fun, until you run into a just out of screen enemy you want to take out, as the scope will not move the screen with it.
The game spends much more time forcing you to 'jack' tough bad guys than it does asking you to break crates or make acrobatic jumps as it has in the past. Despite offering less actual Crash than the original titles, this works out in your benefit. The game's rigid camera allows for incredibly limited movement of it, which typically makes the harder jumps a guessing game that you will frequently loose. The game wisely does not penalize you for falling to your certain death, rather setting you right back at the start of the platform without docking a life, making the camera system tolerable.
