One of our members (DZ) asked for this week's showdown. If anyone else has a showdown request which hasn't been done, please feel free to drop the staff a PM anytime. :)

Having never played Spyro my vote goes to Crash. Anyone else a fan of Crash Bash, PlayStation's supposed answer to the Mario Party franchise? I didn't mind it at all, me and a group of mates had a blast with it for a good few months.

Uhh, they're both shit? :P Sorry DZ, though these aren't even Playstation franchises anymore anyway!

I voted Spyro, cause dragons are cool :P

Agreed. There should be an additional option

I hate both Crash and Spyro but I hate Spyro less than I hate Crash so the dragon gets my vote :P

I went Spyro, because the games weren't as limiting.
And Spyro took longer to sell out.
that said, Crash games were good once upon a time. Back when Naughty Dog were at the helm.

I agree they're not the best platformers out there, and they're also lame mascots for a platform compared to Mario. (BTW, imo, Snake is the PS mascot since MGS)

I voted Crash one reason only, Crash Team Racing. The best cart racing game (for the 32/64-bit era anyway) ever imo, better (ie, more fun) than Mario Kart 64. Like anything Naughty Dog, Crash games had something special about it, the music, the funny bad guys (esp Cortex). I agree the plot was shite but they were very fun games.

I liked Spyro too, it had better bosses and more developed characters compared to Crash but I never get that nostalgic feeling when thinking about it. If there was no CTR I'd prolly vote Spyro because Insomniac were a clever and creative bunch too.

I really hope CTR gets released on PSN, so everyone can enjoy it.

Snake is a Konami franchise DZ, he may seem like a "Playstation franchise" due to MGS appearing dominatly on PS consoles, but that could change due to shifts in market share and the like. Plus he is in SMASH BROS! :P

Crash, because the very first one was insanely frustrating, yet great.

And Spyro always seemed to... well... suck.

Never played a Crash game, but I love the art style.

I won the original Spyro on PSOne and quite enjoyed it. The 10000 sequels I never bothered with.

I remember completing Crash Bandicoot (the original) when I was all of about 10 years old. there was one level on the last island that forced you to go backwards. Into a place you couldn't see. So you literally had to memorise the level so that you wouldn't jump into a hole or something.

Now most would call that bad game design, but back then it was just another challenge.


And CTR, I actually booted that up a little while back for shits and giggles. It didn't impress me now as much as it did back then. But the amount of time I spent on it back in the day is proof that it was pretty good.

Oooh tough one. I thoroughly enjoyed both franchises back in the day (when Naughty Dog and Insomniac were behind them that is) and completed each title many times. Crash Bandicoot was my first Playstation title to own actually and I always found it somewhat ironic in a way that it was also the hardest out of the three (decent) titles. Out of the two I'd have to say that my pick would go to Crash, even if only because it was a better pick up and play game than Spyro was. Spyro was about exploring levels and collecting a whole bunch of stuff, Crash was more about finishing the levels and yeah I guess that was more fun because it didn't take too long to finish a couple of levels here and there. Both were awesome though definitely, until other developers picked the franchises up anyway.

Oh and Crash Team Racing rocked. None of my friends back in the day liked it though (they preferred Mario Kart) and as such, I didn't get to enjoy it to its full potential. That annoyed me, it did. <_<

Even though Crash was on rails and probably not as good as Mario, it had its pros, like the unforgettable catchy jungle music that set the atmosphere really well. I've looked around a bit and found out that the team hired by ND to produce the music was Mutato Muzika. they also did the music for Jak & Daxter! No wonder I liked it too! I really hope they get hired to do the Uncharted soundtrack.

And while on wikipedia and also on metacritic, I came across the scores from some gaming sites/mags given to the ND Crash games...

Crash 1 got 8.3/10 from EGM
Crash 2 got 8.5 from GameSpot
Crash 3 got an average of 91 on metacritic
CTR got an average of 88 on metacritic

Hell yeah, my copies scratched to buggery and i can't find it anywhere locally secondhand or otherwise. :(

Spyro is a legend and was by far my favourite gaming protagonist in my early years.

I played Spyro a little bit, but I didn't like it as much as Crash. CTR was pretty good as well.