Crash Team Racing Review
Developer: Naughty Dog
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Platform: PlayStation 1
Release Date: 20th October 1999 EU, 30th September 1999 NA, 16th December 1999 JP
Crash Team Racing is better than Mario Kart 64. There. I’m getting that out of the way now. Even though I played CTR when I was 7 and didn’t get to play Mario Kart 64 until I was, what, 20? 21? And Double Dash when I was 12. You could argue I’m looking at it with nostalgia, but that is definitely not the case. I’m an adult now with critical thinking skills! I’ll get to Mario Kart 64 another time but I’m going to gush over why CTR is one of the best kart racing games I’ve ever played.
Now this was one of the first Playstation games I ever had and played when I got the console for my 7th birthday. And it was such a huge leap from playing the SNES to playing a Playstation. The controller felt bigger and the games visually felt bigger to me. My mind was blown yet again.
In CTR you get more than a few game modes; you get adventure where you get to race around the tracks multiple times to win trophies, CTR tokens and relics, time trial mode which is obvious, arcade where you can do single races or cup tournaments of which there are 4, VS and battle mode for up to 4 players. Overall there are 16 race tracks plus 2 unlockable ones and 5 arena maps.You get 8 initial characters to play as at first; Crash, Cortex, Coco, Tiny, Dingodile, N.Gin, Polar and Pura with a further 7 characters to unlock, one of which can only be unlocked through a cheat code; Peta Penguin, who’s probably the fastest character in the game, the little guy is ridiculous but perfect for time trials. He’s only this fast in the PAL region however.
In adventure, and the plot of the game, Nitrous Oxide travels to Earth where he searches for a racer faster than he to give him a challenge. If he loses he’ll leave off but if he wins he’ll take over the world turning it into a parking lot.
You get to choose one of the 8 characters to race through adventure mode. You have to race all 16 tracks and obtain all 4 boss keys to race Oxide the first time and then collect all CTR tokens and relics and gems to face him a second time. Yeah, you have to face him twice. When I was a kid and beat him the first time and the credits rolled I thought I was done completely and with the end credit scene of him testing you further to get all relics and gems I thought that would be for a game another time. But nope. You have to go through the tracks all over again twice over.
But the tracks are so damn fun and the game plays so pleasingly it’s not a chore at all and always fun to race through the tracks multiple times.
Of the gem cups, complete each one and you can unlock the bosses! Ripper Roo, Komodo Joe, Pinstripe, Papu Papu and no Nitros. He was too big to play as apparently which always got me wondering as a kid as to how to unlock him.
Additionally you can unlock N. Tropy by beating his ghosts in time trial mode.
Or if you can't be assed, there's cheats to unlock them all!
Of the 16 tracks, they’re all based on themes from the levels in the previous Crash games as well as relative to each character. Crash has Crash Cove, Coco has Coco Park, N.Gin has N.Gin labs, Tiny has Tiny Arena and Tiger Temple (or would that be Pura’s?), Cortex has his Cortex Castle, Dingodile has Dingo Canyon, and Polar’s got Polar Pass. There’s also Mystery Caves designed from the dino levels in Warped, Blizzard Bluff, Sewer Speedway modelled after the sewer levels in Crash 2, and the unlockable Slide Colosseum and Turbo Track.
Additionally there are stages set for the bosses of the game; Ripper Roo is the first you face on Roo’s Tubes, Papu Papu on Papu Pyramid, Komodo Joe in Dragon Mines, Pinstripe on Hot Air Skyway and finally Oxide on Oxide Station.
The tracks are basically large, fun playgrounds to zip around in and with how well the karts and characters handle it’s a blast to boost around the tracks, jumping off ramps and discovering short cuts. In each boss track you get their portraits posted all about as well as tracks like Cortex Castle and N.Gin Labs you get their portraits posted about too. It’s fun to look around these tracks to see just what’s going on in these levels.
And speaking of the tracks being playgrounds, there would be days where my sister and I would spend half an hour on Tiny Arena just playing around in the mud. Oxide Station’s speed boosts all over is a perfect reflection on Oxide’s character being the “Fastest Racer in the Galaxy” and makes for great fun to zip around the track as fast as possible given the slide boosts to add to it.
Which!
Mario Kart 64 had its own slide boost mechanic, but Crash’s is far better. You jump with either R1 or L1, turn, and the gauge on the bottom right fills up. When it’s red you hit the opposing jump button (so if you used R1 now you use L1) and you get a quick speed boost and you can repeat this up to 3 times in a single slide.
This makes the racing gameplay move by so much faster and smoother and more entertaining and makes turning corners more enjoyable. Later racing games implemented this, including Double Dash!
In lieu of the release of Crash Team Racing Nitro Fuelled, I thought it fun to look back at the original. The game that started off my love for Crash and kart racers. The game that showed me how fun games can and will become and what stapled Playstation, to me, as my console of choice. Essentially.
This game still stands strong, even against its remake counterpart and stands stronger against other kart racing games that have come out before and after it. It set such a precedent for kart racers that even its sequel, Nitro Kart, influenced Mario Kart with anti-gravity tracks and karts.
It’s fun, plays so well, it’s colourful, its design is sublime, and its soundtrack and sound design is vibrant and joyful. There’s no reason to not like this game.
Where To Purchase:
Playstation Store: £3.99/$5.99 (PS3, PSP, PS Vita)
Ebay: £20-70/ $20-(31/07/19)
Amazon: £20-50/ $7.25-$200 (31/07/19)