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in: Pinnystripey

Cortex Power

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This article is about the level from the first game. For the company itself, see Uncle Cortie's Cortex Power Super-Conglomerate Incorporated.
Cortex Power
Cortexpower1
Crates: 41 (9 on Blue Gem Route)
Collectibles: 1 Clear Gem

Cortex Power is the sixteenth level of Crash Bandicoot. Crash has successfully braved the perils of Uncle Cortie's Down-Home Old-Fashioned Hamburgers's's disgusting hellhole of a kitchen, and this has brought him to the very front door of Cortex's famous nuclear power plant! In this level, he's tasked with navigating the initial series of hallways within the complex UCCPSCI complex, which is difficult and, also, complex, because it complexly branches off into many different paths. Gem hunters will have to do lots of backtracking and shit. It sucks. Crashie will, of course, have to avoid falling into the abundant radioactive waste in this stage, while avoiding the hordes of Cory's nuclear technicians - Generic Robot Unit 8000s and Uncle Cortie's Patented Robo-Pincushions with Robo-Periscopes, obviously. If you explore the level thoroughly enough, you just might be treated to a special guest appearance by Cortex Power's Chief Human Resources Officer Wilford Q. Herringbone!

The Rather Important Enemy That Simply Wasn't: By "Simply Wasn't" I Just Mean That He Ended Up Not Existing in the Final Game, Not That He Simply Wasn't Rather Important, Because He Certainly Was, or Rather, Would Have Been Rather Important Had He Actually Been in the Final Game, Which He Simply Wasn't, There, I Hope That Clears Things Up a Bit.[]

Gernobyl

Gernobyl, a character tragically left on the cutting room floor. He really wishes he had been included in the game, instead of Wilford Q. Herringbone. He is totally green with envy, and also, radioactive goo.

It's no secret that Crash Bandicoot is notable for its rich themes and subtexts, which show the influence of Eastern philosophy as well as ideology of the Elizabethan era. However, it's yes secret that, at one point, Naughty Dog were planning a game that made even more commentary on the current worldwide Earth society in which we live. Mark Cerny originally wanted to make a sly satirical commentary on how awesome big tits are with the character Tawna, but after Sony Computer Entertainment caught wind of the character, their executive meddling resulted in the homogenized small-breasted Tawna we see today. There is one subject on which Sony Computer Entertainment went even further. There is one character that they forced to be removed altogether. This is his story.

It's no secret that most of Dr. Neo Cortex's mutants were mutated by the Evolvo-Ray. However, it's yes secret that Naughty Dog originally wanted to include a character mutated via other means, for satire's sake, or whatevers. Enter Gernobyl, the once-adorable gerbil mutated into flesh-eating beast thanks to Uncle Cortie's radioactive nuclear radiation! In several spots in this level, you would encounter Gernobyl doing something adorable and gerbilly (such as standing on his tippy toes to reach his water bottle, or running endlessly on one of those cruel psychological torture "hamster wheels"), and have to find a way to get past without either being brutally murdered right then and there, or contracting radiation poisoning and dying later on. Like all homicides in the Crashie universe, these death animations would have been delightful, because gerbils can somehow be cute while doing literally anything, thanks to their fuzzy little faces and hypnotic squeaking. However, Sony Computer Entertainment had different ideas. "Making a joke about one of the deadliest nuclear disasters in history would be offensive, especially in a children's game," they cried. (This weak-kneed limp-wristed liberal hippie crap is more or less the same reason Uncle Cortie's Down-Home Old-Fashioned Hamburgers was forced to stop selling Uncle Cortie's Red-Hot Flaming Hindenburger for the duration of the game, incidentally.)

Naughty Dog had no choice. If they wanted Sony to allow their game to grace the glorious Sony PlayStation, they had to nuke Gernobyl. And they weren't much on taking risks with publishers anymore, since the game had already been rejected on their first choice, the Nintendo Entertainment System 64. Gernobyl was hastily replaced with a very slight remodelling of Pinstripe Potoroo - the aforementioned Wilford Q. Herringbone. Due to low quality, and also, developer embarrassedness, these retouched sequences were moved to fairly obscure parts of the levels, because they hoped no one would ever see them, because seriously, they fucking suck. To add insult to injury, Sony turned a blind eye four years later when Eurocom tried to include a far less clever and adorable Chernobyl-based character - Chern-Oval, Nuclear God of Elliptical Racing from the stage Toxic Dash - in Crash Bandicoot Presents: The Epic Battle of Good (and Bad Guys Arbitrarily Reassigned to the Side of Good) vs. Evil (and a Former Bad Guy Who Was Arbitrarily Reassigned to the Side of Good in Crash 2 but Has Now Been Arbitrarily Reassigned to the Side of Evil Again)!.

What's the moral of this story? Well, obviously, if you've been involved in a horrific and unspeakable tragedy that killed off your entire family, you've already inflicted entirely too much sadness on the world. Loser. Humour cures all, so you should step aside when some soulless media conglomerate wants to make a tasteless reference to your unfathomable loss, for the good of the nation! Really! I'm telling you, it's the Cher-noble thing to do. :)

Trivia[]

Cortexpower2

Crashie knows he's supposed to be squaring off against Cortex Power's Chief Human Resources Officer, but he can't help but be a little turned on. His potential potoroo paramour would have to agree for, you see, Wilford Q. is getting a bit of a Herringboner. I sincerely apologise.

  • This level's title is an obvious allusion to "White Power", a common cry uttered by white nationalists. Naughty Dog obviously intends to paint Dr. Neo Cortex - who is, not coincidentally, white - as an obvious reprehensible villain by creating a subconscious association between him and the reprehensible white supremacist movement. (In this context, it is interesting to note Cortex's falling out with Dr. Nitrus Brio, whom we later learn is sort of black in Tikimon Green: Special Crashiechu Edition.)
  • Less likely, it is an almost unfathomably witty and clever pun alluding to the fact that Dr. Neo Cortex owns this nuclear power facility.
  • A small number of fans think it could be alluding to a third, far more sinister possibility: that this power plant is, somehow, powered by Dr. Neo Periwinkle Cortex himself. Wait, is that actually sinister, or merely nonsensical? I don't actually know. Either way, these fans are morons and I hate them, lots.
  • Obtaining the Gem in this stage requires a great deal of backtracking, an obvious allusion by the developers to Nintendo's rival Metroid series. Many fans continue to hope that future games will revisit this unique style of gameplay, which they have lovingly dubbed "Metroidicoot" or "Bandicootroid".
  • A considerably smaller group of fans continue to hope that the Crashie series will adopt another recurring Metroid element - the ability to unlock increasingly scantily clad versions of Crash the faster they complete the game. They should know better, though. There's absolutely no way the Crashster could possibly compare to his fellow platformer star, Milton "Rayman" Berle.
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