Crash of the Titans DS

Crash of the Titans on the Nintendo DS is one of the best handheld Crash titles of all time. Unlike its PSP counterpart, which was a straight port of the console version, Crash DS went for a completely different direction of gameplay.The developers of this game (Amaze Entertainment) mostly took elements from the ol' PS1 crash titles with crate smashing and linear corridor-style levels, and fused it with the combat and the brand new titan-jacking mechanic (where you can ride enemies using Aku Aku). It works surprisingly well, and while I've never played the console/PSP versions myself I've heard from many critics and fans that it is a lot more fun and less repetitious than the consoles. There is a lot of extra goodies as well for the completionists, such as minigames, bonus levels, a pinball machine which unlocks stuff such as concept art, and even an alternate ending.The 3D graphics are also some of the best on the DS. It looks better than Super Mario 64 DS and Sonic Rush, and it even rivals some early Dreamcast games. The characters, especially Crash himself, are high-poly and actually change facial expressions, and the insides of their mouths are even fully modeled. They animate fantastically as well; Crash stretches and squishes as he runs and jumps, and if you AFK for too long there's even an idling animation where he pulls out his own Nintendo DS and plays with it out of boredom! The environments feature rich detail with some superb lighting and top notch textures. Even some of the trees cast shadows onto the ground, and the shadows actually move instead of just being still imprinted with the grass texture. This all comes at a cost though, as the draw distance is not the best, and the framerate sometimes suffers from slowdown. Nonetheless, the developers have really nailed the visual presentation, and have created one of the best looking games on the platform.The sound also does quite a bit to push the DS. The MIDI music is nothing to write home about but it is generally quite good. What really impresses, though, is that the devs were somehow able to include voice clips for every single line of dialogue. YES. That's right. A Nintendo DS game where every single word is spoken. Sure, many other games on the platform did this, but most of them never sounded as high quality and non-compressed as the ones heard here. Unfortunately, though, some of the lines are either unfunny or straight up cringe. I did find Neo Cortex's tutorial on how to play the game quite hilarious, but that was pretty much it. And the devs for whatever reason, decided to throw in a laugh track sound effect (present in lots of sitcom TV shows such as Drake and Josh), which makes the "jokes" even more unfunny and feels out of place in this type of game.All that aside, this is a pretty solid Crash game, but it is no masterpiece by any means. Fans of the marsupial will definitely get a kick out of this portable adventure, though, and same with fans of the 3D platforming genre. It's a shame, though, that the sequel on the DS was not developed by the same developer, and it ended up being trash.Graphics: 9/10Gameplay: 8/10Sound: 7.5/10Replayability: 7/10Overall Score: 8/10