10 Secret Ways Video Games Play YOU

10. Crash Bandicoot 2 Slows Obstacles & Gives Extra Health To Struggling Players

The first Crash Bandicoot is a notoriously difficult platformer, and one which caused game director Jason Rubin to take a long, hard look at what could be done to mitigate player frustration for the sequel, Cortex Strikes Back.

For the follow-up, Rubin implemented some cutting-edge difficulty-shifting mechanics, known internally as "Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment" (DDA), which would not only award struggling players an Aku Aku mask upon respawning - allowing them to take a free hit without damage - but also slow the speed of boulders if players were killed repeatedly by them.

Better still, fruit crates would even be transformed into checkpoint boxes if a player died near them enough.

In Rubin's own words, the goal was to "help weaker players without changing the game for the better players." And though some of these adjustments are quite obvious, namely the Aku Aku mask, slowing an obstacle incrementally each time it kills a player is brilliantly subtle enough that just about nobody ever noticed.

The result is probably the best-balanced of all the Crash games, given that the first is too punishing and the third, Warped, is just hilariously easy.

Mercifully, when Vicarious Visions released their N. Sane Trilogy remaster back in 2017, they retroactively inserted the DDA mechanics into the original Crash, even if the remaster's new collision boxes arguably still make the platforming harder than in the original.