Lab Assistant

Lab Assistants were common enemies between Crash Bandicoot and Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage. They are androids working for Cortex that look just like humans. They are several variants, for example, one variant has a flamethrower while another looks like a knight. In N. Tropy's Time Twister machine, there was an area full of machines producing clones of the assistants.

First sights
The Lab Assistants were first seen in the third-to-last stage in the very first Crash Bandicoot, known as "The Lab". This was the only time Lab Assistants were seen in a way related to their name: lab assistants working for Cortex and Brio, and therefore trying to stop Crash in order to help the doctors peacefully do their job. However, their electrified hands were presumably hinting the fact only their appearance was human, while their nature is totally artificial. See the below paragraph for further explanation.

Multi-job return
These guys returned in the sequel, this time covering a way wider range of jobs, such as working in the sewer stages, handling bars made of steel crates or even using annoying (and deadly) shields against the hero while in Cortex's space station. But Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped was the game showing the highest number of jobs for the Assistants, depending on the time they are located in. How they just all look the same is then explained as soon as the sixth world is unlocked and entered, as said above: the Warp Room in fact contains a real factory in which they, as the robots they actually are, are first built and then sent into a stage just in order to (at least) try to stop Crash once again.

Post-Naughty Dog era
After the company sadly left the Bandicoot, the personality now achieved by the L.A. species led the robots to more and more appearances, such as various ones seen in The Wrath Of Cortex (with the "Afro Assistant" even being shown in the game's credits), as well as many ones appearing in the first two Vicarious Visions GBA titles.

Trivia

 * The fact that there are so many variants of Lab Assistants makes them similar to Nintendo's Shy Guys, which also have the most variants of Nintendo enemies.


 * There was supposed to be a "Prehistoric" Lab Assistant riding the Triceratops in Warped, but it was later scrapped.