Trigger Happy
Luigi bashing their enemies with huge mallets in the 1980s is a direct homage to such exaggerated cartoon violence as that found in Tom and Jerry.
Now, with vastly increased graphic power, the multi-million-selling Crash Bandicoot 3 (see fig. 8) is as gorgeously colored, smoothly animated and thoroughly entertaining as many Warner Bros. examples. (While it is a very simple game to play, it is superior to cleverer examples like Ape Escape, Donkey Kong 64 or Spyro 2 in terms of sheer visual splendor.) Crash 3 is particularly successful in replicating and extending the tradition of humorous cartoon deaths— which, like videogame deaths, are only ever temporary. The eponymous orange marsupial, Crash, can get flattened into two dimensions by a rolling boulder and will wobble around piteously; he can get blown up by a mine and jump, singed and yowling, into the air; he can fall down a crevasse and have his ghost hauled heavenwards by an angel; or he can bump into a malign puffer fish and suddenly balloon to twice his size.
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