Cheap Deaths = Frustration
One big annoyance with Twinsanity is that there is an insane number of cheap deaths. There are loads and loads of jumping puzzles. Moving platforms, falling platforms, and a number of other obstacles stand in your way and get more difficult as the game goes on. Most developers have learned by now that frustrating platforming sections suck, so it is surprising how big of a role they play in Twinsanity. Between the jumping sections and the general sloppy feel of the game, you will find yourself dying a lot. Luckily, you can amass a huge number of extra lives, but that really isn’t an excuse. There are lots of other 3D adventure/platforming games out there, and very few of them try to fall back on this style of gameplay anymore. This sounds like a lot of whining, but play Super Mario Sunshine or Jak and Daxter and then play Twinsanity and you’ll understand.Graphics
Graphically, Crash Twinsanity looks really good. The character are fairly detailed and look good overall. They are animated extremely well, too. The wild, overexcited way Crash moves around is just what you would expect from an overeager, slightly braindead character. And Cortex’s sneaking and creeping is just what you would expect from a crazed evil guy. The environments aren’t very detailed, but they make great use of colors to distinguish different areas.
Sound
The sound in Twinsanity is even better. The music in particular is simply outstanding. It always fits perfectly in whatever area you are in and sounds great. The music features the human voice in a lot of the music over a backbone of synthesized beats. It really makes for a cool sound and a lot of the songs are actually pretty catchy. There is quite a bit of spoken dialogue in Twinsanity and most of it sounds pretty good. Crash himself doesn’t speak, but the other characters do and their voices are just what you would expect them to sound like.Bottom Line
Overall, Crash Twinsanity just feels a bit too familiar. It borrows heavily from pretty much every other 3D platformer out there, but it doesn’t do the things it copies particularly well. Twinsanity is solid, but there are better games out there that are more worthy of your time. Crash fans will probably like it quite a bit, but 3D platforming fans need to look elsewhere. Give it a rental if you are interested.
