![]() ![]() Although other developers would go onto release new Crash games, none have been able to best what Naughty Dog achieved with Warped. The best part is that once you beat the final boss, the game was far from over, as Warped tasked players with completing time trials in each level in order to reach 100%. The developer also changed up the moment-to-moment gameplay by giving Crash a host of new abilities to earn throughout the game, including a double jump, super spin, and a bazooka that fired the game’s wampa fruit collectibles (this was still the 90s, after all). Motorcycle races, bi-plane dogfights, and on-rails shooting segments were just a few of the ways Naughty Dog changed things up, but they weren’t content to just throw in some new mini games and call it a day. While Crash Bandicoot: Warped dialed back on the raw platforming found in the first two Crash games, it made up for this with sheer gameplay variety, with Naughty Dog dabbling in all sorts of different genres across the game’s 30+ levels. Not unlike the situation with Spryo, Naughty Dog saved the best for last with its third and final traditional Crash Bandicoot game (they would go on to do one more, the excellent cart racer Crash Team Racing). ![]() Still regarded as one of the best games for the PS1, Spyro: Year of the Dragon is a platforming classic that demonstrates what happens when a developer goes out on top. #3d platform games seriesSpyro: Year of the Dragon, Insomniac’s third and final Spyro game, is easily the most polished of the trilogy and built extensively upon the foundations of the previous games.įeaturing the same overworld structure established in its immediate predecessor, Ripto’s Rage, Year of the Dragon took things a step further by introducing a variety of new playable characters, with even Spyro’s firefly buddy Sparx geting a chance to shine (no pun intended) in a series of fun top-down shooter levels. #3d platform games ps2If you’ve never experienced Rayman 2, you owe it to yourself to track down a copy (we suggest going for the Dreamcast or PS2 versions, as they are the best from a technical standpoint).īefore he became but one of many, many Skylander toys, Spyro the Dragon was the star of his own successful platforming series on the PS1 and developer Insomniac Games saved the best for last. The Rayman games have earned a reputation for their beautiful graphics, excellent soundtrack, and precise controls and while each of those elements have aged quite a bit in The Great Escape’s case, it holds up remarkably well for a game that was ported to just about every console on the market in 1999/2000. Representing Rayman’s first foray into three dimensions, The Great Escape received nowhere near the popularity of titles like Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie, but it arguably stands shoulder-to-shoulder with those titles as one of the best 3D platformers ever made. While Rayman Legends is arguably the best overall game in the franchise, it’s not technically a 3D platformer, so we had to go with the much older, but still excellent Rayman 2: The Great Escape. In other words, while I’m aware that Super Mario 64 still deserves to be considered one of the all-time great 3D platformers, you will not find it on this list because subsequent Mario games have outclassed it. To avoid half this list being comprised of just Mario games, I’ve decided to only consider one game from any given series. Platforming games may not be as vibrant as they used to be, but they’ve still given us some of the best gaming experiences of the last 20 years. Super Mario Odyssey is the most anticipated game for the Nintendo Switch right now and Insomniac Games continues to pump out excellent Ratchet & Clank games, a franchise that has been going strong for 15 years now. And even though the game isn’t very good, the very existence of Playtonic’s Banjo-Kazooie spiritual successor Yooka-Laylee shows that there is still interest in these sorts of games. Still, there are some developers still trying to keep the genre alive. Still, for anyone who grew up gaming in the PS1/N64 era, it’s hard not to feel a pang of nostalgia for the glory days of platforming games, as the genre is a shadow of its former self these days. Although Nintendo is still doing its best to keep the genre alive with its routinely excellent 3D Mario titles, most developers and publishers long ago abandoned mascot platformers in favor of more “mature” fare like action-adventure and first-person shooter games. 3D platformers were once one of the most popular genres in gaming, but they have undoubtedly fallen out of vogue over the last decade or so. ![]()
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