Crash Bash (PlayStation)

Like kart racing before it, the newly formed party game genre is the latest and greatest vehicle for company mascots. From the high profile consoles stars like Mario and Sonic to the more obscure Hudson mascot Bomberman, everyone is looking for a piece of the party game action. Not one to be left out, Crash Bandicoot has come through with his own party game, Crash Bash.

A party game, by definition, must be playable by a party-sized group of people. Crash Bash has this covered, as with the use of a Multitap, up to four players can get in on the action at once. The aforementioned action comes in the form of minigames. As opposed to the board game structure of Mario Party, though, Crash Bash goes for a more freestyle approach, with the focus set on fast and furious rounds of competitive play. There are a total of seven minigame types, four of which are available from the start. Each of the minigame types has four variations, for a total of 28 different minigames. Thanks to the game's adventure mode, you can play with either one or two players against multiple computer-controlled opponents, but it's not recommended. The minigame types range from a crate fight to four-way pong, and the goal of every game is to either score more points than your opponents or destroy them all together, so these games simply aren't fun when playing with anything short of four players. The scattered AI lacks balance, with most mixed matches resulting in either a brutal mauling of the computer or vise versa.