My Diaries

A Lurid Tale of Obsession, Depravity, Wits and Attempted Wit

Sun Mar 7, 1999

Gran Turismo and 7 year-olds and Crash Bandicoot 3

Oh well. Last weekend I didn't play any Gran Turismo with my nephew. My wife told him she thought I wouldn't be bringing the disk and cards, and, had it not been *his* birthday party I would not have.

But he never was sufficiently interested to request that Gran Turismo be started, so that's okay. He told my wife that he likes watching me play better than playing, and that might not go down too well with his parents. It sort of monopolizes the entertainment centre.

So, it turned out he had got stuck on the motorcycle race stage of Crash Bandicoot 3, and so his mother (his partner in Bandicootery) and him (and also his 6-year-old sister, chief cheeleader) wanted me to try it. It was actually quite easy. I was afraid it would be different enough that I'd do badly, but it was baaically a blipping D-pad and "X" accelerator interface (square brake, which I might have dabbed once) interface. Special sections of road to ride over to make you faster, jumps over canyons, and big *deep* holes in the road to avoid. It took me all of two tries to get first place, which won the coveted crystal which let him go on to level 15 where he battles Captain Nintendo, er, I mean, N.Tropy.

The problem my nephew has with the motorcycling is that he doesn't want to slow down to take the corners, and so spends half his time in the ditch. Even more important is to slow down and plot your trajectory to avoid the giant deep holes (and also to get past the eight opponent cars without running into them; they kick you off the road if you stay beside them too long).

His mother did not give a demonstration, so I'm not sure if she's tried it; she's pretty good with the SeaDoo on another level. Apparently no-one had come better than second.

I was surprised when I won, actually, because I had fallen into a hole right near the end, but the second life saved me, and still left me time to win. I was glad my niece was cheering so enthusiastically, because she actually told me to get going again quickly, whereas I was mentally prepared for doing another run. The previous (first) run I had come second using only one life. Needless to say, I had nowhere near a perfect run either time, leaving behind quite a lot of all the apples and other goodies. It was quite exhausting, actually, so I was glad they wanted to go on to the next level and play that.

So, in short, Crash Bandicoot 3 is a very good game for young children and some mothers. But Gran Tursimo skills can be applied somewhat. (I also used to play a lot of Commodore 64 Superbike Challenge at one time).