Doctor N. Gin

Doctor N. Gin (Japanese: ドクター エヌ ジン, Dokutā Enu Jin, often known as N. Gin for short (formatted as N-Gin in some games), is a recurring antagonist throughout the Crash Bandicoot series, and he first appears in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. Since Doctor Nitrus Brio resigned, N. Gin has served as the right-hand man of Doctor Neo Cortex throughout the games. N. Gin is a skilled mechanic with a stereotypical eccentric personality.

Conception and creation
Jason Rubin is credited for the concept of Doctor N. Gin. N. Gin has a live missile in his head, which can give him a headache when it becomes active; this characteristic was inspired by Rubin's own chronic migraine headaches. N. Gin was praised as "truly original" by his creators. N. Gin's name is an obvious play on the word "engine", referring to his occupation as a physicist.

Background
Like the rest of the characters in the series, N. Gin's exact age is uncertain. However, in a piece of concept art for Crash Twinsanity, N. Gin is shown to have gone to the same school as Neo Cortex and Nitrus Brio, and thus is about the same age as the latter two. N. Gin's Peter Lorre-esque accent and taste for polka music suggest that he is of European ancestry, though no other evidence of this exists in the games. According to him, N. Gin has or had a superficial brother named George (a reference to Liberace), and has ruined at least one prom.

Before teaming up with Doctor Neo Cortex, N. Gin was a well-known physicist in the defense industry, though it is implied in the Game Boy Advance version of Crash of the Titans that he once worked at a stapler factory. Due to a budget cut, one of his missile projects went awry and found itself lodged into N. Gin's head. N. Gin has since stabilized the weapon, and went on to become Doctor Cortex's henchman one year after the events of Crash Bandicoot.

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
While helping Cortex study the power of their newly-found Master Crystal, N. Gin reveals that 25 Slave Crystals are needed along with the Master Crystal to harness the power of the upcoming planetary alignment and use it to enslave mankind. When Cortex recruits Crash to retrieve the Crystals for him, Doctor N. Gin attempts to take them as the penultimate boss in the game. The weapons on N. Gin's mech turn out to be weak points, and Crash is easily able to toss Wumpa Fruit into the weapons, causing the mech to malfunction and self-destruct, leaving N. Gin floating in the vacuum of space. He is somehow able to reach Cortex's space station before the final boss battle, as evidenced by quotes said by Cortex before the battle against him. After the destruction of his prized mech, N. Gin began constructing a superior suit of mobile armor, one that can transform into a space fighter and dock with a huge weapon platform.

Crash Bandicoot: Warped
In Crash Bandicoot: Warped, N. Gin is sent to eliminate the Bandicoots with this new mech as the penultimate boss of the game. After a battle with Coco and Pura on the Moon, N. Gin is once again sent flying into the vacuum of space.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
In Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, N. Gin is an attendee of Uka Uka's bad guy convention, and is ultimately the one who reveals the secret of Crunch Bandicoot, Cortex's new super weapon. N. Gin serves as an obstacle in some of the levels.

Crash Twinsanity
In Crash Twinsanity, N. Gin appears during the first boss battle, piloting the Mecha-Bandicoot in an attempt to eliminate Crash. When all of its weapons are destroyed, the Mecha-Bandicoot stomps a hole into the floor and falls into a cavern. N. Gin is later seen as the captain of his own battleship. At the crow's nest, N. Gin tries to destroy Crash again with a barrage of missiles, occasionally tossing a TNT Crate. This leads to the eventual collapse of the crow's nest, causing N. Gin to land on his head onto a pile of TNT Crates, causing a large explosion that sinks the battleship. N. Gin teamed up with N. Tropy and N. Brio in trying to steal the Evil Twins' riches, although they are driven out by Spyro the Dragon.

Crash of the Titans
N. Gin makes a return appearance in Crash of the Titans. In his first scene, he is seen serving hot tea to Doctor Neo Cortex, who repeatedly spits it onto his face due to shock induced by upcoming events. N. Gin, being his usual masochistic self, takes great pleasure when this happens. When Cortex faces replacement, N. Gin, along with Cortex and Tiny Tiger, protest by praising Cortex's stationery. N. Gin is next seen in his weapons factory, with an exterior appearance of the Statue of Liberty modelled after N. Gin. This factory constantly bombards the surrounding area with all kinds of explosives in an attempt to hinder Crash. Crash eventually finds a way inside through the statue's "bottom". Inside the factory, N. Gin communicates to his workers through the factory intercom, making announcements, singing inspirational songs, or alerting the workers of Crash's presence. In the factory's crown, N. Gin spends his days performing on his enormous pipe organ. When confronted by Crash and Aku Aku, N. Gin indirectly reveals to them that he has mixed feelings over Cortex's replacement to Nina Cortex. One side likes Doctor Cortex and the abuse he brings to him, and wishes for his return, while another side approves of Nina's new way of doing things, believing that she is a more efficient leader than Cortex. Eventually, the two sides reach a compromise, and tell Crash of Uka Uka's whereabouts in hopes that he will also free Cortex, planning to shower them with doom later on. He is not seen in the game after that. During the game's credits, it is implied that N. Gin is diabetic when he requests "double insulin" after reading an especially sweet message of love and thanks from a Radical employee.

Crash: Mind over Mutant
Brio reunites with Neo Cortex once more in Crash: Mind over Mutant, in which he aids in the development of the NV, a personal digital assistant that can control both mutants and bandicoots. He uses recycled parts from the Sludge Junkyard to mass-produce NVs and create a new space station for Doctor Cortex. Throughout the game, he claims to be the inventor of numerous things, including recycling, Slinkies and endings (though he does acknowledge he did not invent LiteBrite). He is found in the Junkyard with a brainwashed Crunch Bandicoot by Crash and Aku Aku, who are then attacked by Crunch under Brio's orders. When Crunch is broken free from the NV's control, Brio is forced to reveal the whereabouts of Uka Uka, who is acting as the source of the negative Mojo needed to control those wearing NVs. He is then told to leave the island, but promises that it is not the end.

Other appearances
N. Gin is a playable character in every Crash Bandicoot racing titles, with his car usually being high in acceleration points.

In Crash Team Racing, N. Gin has his own track, N. Gin Labs, which is fraught with acid pits, giant rolling barrels, and many sharp turns to navigate, a track fitting of N. Gin's crazy personality.

In Crash Nitro Kart, N. Gin is one of the racers in Cortex's team, which pilots red vehicles. At one point, N. Gin considers creating cybernetic sharks as new henchmen after racing Nash.

In Crash Tag Team Racing, N. Gin convinces Neo Cortex to join in the search for Von Clutch's missing Power Gems so that he can use Von Clutch's theme park as a new base of operations (although Cortex later claims the idea as his own). In all of his missions, N. Gin is shown requesting plutonium, ballerina outfit and pink fuzzy slippers.

N. Gin has cameo appearances in the two Crash party games, appearing as an obstacle in a Ballistix minigame in Crash Bash, and appearing in the "Silhouette Quiz" minigame in Crash Boom Bang!.

In Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure, N. Gin serves as the second boss in the game, battling Crash in the skies with a weapon platform similar to the one he piloted in Warped. He is later merged with Doctor Cortex, Tiny and Dingodile, and becomes Mega-Mix. After chasing Crash down a space station hall, Mega-Mix is left inside the space station, which explodes with the villains in it.

Physical description
Doctor N. Gin is a stocky, red-haired (black in Crash Tag Team Racing and dark blue in Crash of the Titans) cyborg with only half a face. He wears an identical attire to Cortex, with a notable difference being a numerous amount of large bolts located all over his lab coat. A distinguishing feature of his is the large missile protruding from the right side of his head. After the incident that provided the missile, N. Gin reconstructed it as a life-support system, turning nearly half his head into metal. The missile is still live, and was only thought to activated only when N. Gin was stressed or angry, but as revealed in Crash Tag Team Racing, he can activate the missile at will, usually to stabilize a vehicle. While the eye located on the non-mechanical side of his head is somewhat small, the eye on the other side of his face is large, circular, and with a small black pupil occupying it (although in Crash Nitro Kart, this eye is replaced by a black electronic eye with a red pupil). In terms of height, N. Gin is somewhat shorter than Cortex, but appears to be as tall as him in Tag Team Racing. In the same game, N. Gin's skin takes on a grayish tone, as opposed to the pink/yellow of earlier games (Doctor Cortex once described N. Gin as "hav[ing] bad complexion). An alternate costume in the game depicts N. Gin in a ballerina outfit, bought by Crash to increase his self-esteem.

In Crash of the Titans, N. Gin's skin and hair color take on a bluish scheme, and the pupil on the robotic half of his face is larger. Besides these differences, N. Gin looks similar to what he did in past games. According to the DS version of Titans, N. Gin is 1.25 meters tall (4 feet, 1 inch) and weighs 63 kilograms (139 pounds).

As a child in the Academy of Evil, N. Gin is shown to have a paper airplane stuck in his head, foreshadowing the missile lodged in his head later in his life. This is revealed in an unlockable piece of concept art in Crash Twinsanity.

Personality
During his first appearances, N. Gin is portrayed in a similar light to that of Cortex's previous henchman Doctor Nitrus Brio: he is less impulsive than Doctor Cortex or Uka Uka and prefers to think over the situation rather than rushing to a decision. This usually leads to a loud rebuttal by his superiors whenever he questions their way of doing things, as shown in the opening cinematics of Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back and Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, the latter in which N. Gin actually contemplates the fact that Crash Bandicoot might simply be too powerful for him and the others to defeat. Nevertheless, Cortex occasionally takes N. Gin's advice into consideration if it benefits him in any way. While completely loyal to Doctor Cortex, N. Gin can easily turncoat for a more efficient leader, leading to something of a split personality that struggles with N. Gin's undying loyalty to Doctor Cortex. His double personality make him as an ambiguous character.

N. Gin's behavior becomes more deranged by Crash Nitro Kart and Crash Twinsanity, becoming prone to fits of giggling. In a deleted scene from Crash Twinsanity, it is shown that he has developed somewhat of a crush on Crash's sister, Coco, as evidenced when Cortex disguises himself as Coco and is kidnapped by N. Gin as a result, who attempts to make "her" his sea bride.

In Crash Tag Team Racing, Doctor N. Gin is depicted as a bipolar, masochistic, suicidal and effeminate madman, prone to fits of feminine mannerisms, yelling, sobbing, and giggling, and making doomsday weapons out of random items such as pink fuzzy slippers. He is also shown to have low self-esteem and crossdressing tendencies, at one point asking Crash to buy him a ballerina outfit so that he can feel more attractive.

In Crash of the Titans, N. Gin has emotional problems, who leading him in hysterical ways. While N. Gin is a masochist, he only enjoys pain if it is bound to logic, demonstrated by his reaction to Neo Cortex spitting scalding hot tea all over his face despite having dumped his entire tea cup prior to that. In the game, there is a part where he briefly shows his misogynistic when informing Crash of his sister's whereabouts,expressing disgust at the thought of girls and eventually is disgusted of Coco. This contradicts with a statement he makes over his factory's intercom, in which he expresses a desire for women. N. Gin enjoys muffins and cupcakes, but hates preppies, citing their music and wavy hair as reasons for his ire against them.

Portrayals
In the PlayStation games, N. Gin was voiced by Brendan O'Brien. In Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, N. Gin is voiced by Corey Burton, who also voices N. Tropy in the same game. N. Gin is voiced by Quinton Flynn in Crash Nitro Kart and Crash Twinsanity. N. Gin is voiced by Nolan North in Crash Tag Team Racing and Crash of the Titans, and by Kazuhiro Nakata in the Japanese dub of the series from Cortex Strikes Back to Twinsanity, with Mitsuru Ogata (who also dubbed over Nitrus Brio in the same series) taking over the role as of Tag Team Racing.

Trivia

 * Doctor N. Gin is a favorite character amongst the staff of Radical Entertainment.