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"So, where's the super-wonderful racing game I was promised? No, seriously, where is it?"

Crash Team Racing, better known as CTR, was the very last Crash Bandicoot game to be developed by Naughty Dog, the original creators of the series, and the guys who got me hooked into the series in the first place. They didn't make the first Crash game I owned though, that was Vicarious Visions (XS). The same company that also made Crash Nitro Kart (CNK for short). This was one of my favourite Crash Bandicoot games, and still is.

But, of course, CNK is only the sequel. CTR was the original Crash racing game, and many people were saying that it was way better than CNK. Then, after at least 2 years of searching, I finally got my massive hands on it.

Only to be hugely disapointed. Quite simply, this is not the superior game I had in mind. Sure, it has several qualitys that make it better than CNK, but I'll get to that in a minute.

STORY
What story? No, seriously, what story? Having played CNK first, I was expecting something along the lines of their storyline, only without the kidnapping etc. What did I get? Some cruddy cutscene of the main enemy, a crabby alien named Nitros Oxide, challenging the Earthlings (all our favourite friends and foes) to a game he calls survival of the fastest. If he wins, he'll turn Earth into a concrete parking lot, and all the enhabitants will become his slaves. If they win, he'll leave Earth alone.

Now, this is all very well except our Earthling friends don't even CARE that their planet is about to be...err...concretised? Is that the word? Well, that's the word I'll use anyway. The rest of the intro just shows them doing stuff to their karts as if nothing was going to happen. I mean, look at Crash...he's SLEEPING! If Earth was about to be turned into a giant parking lot and I were Crash, sleeping would be the last thing on my mind. I'd be visibly concerned. Compare this to CNK, and Crash is visibly concerned when Velo tells the Earthlings that he will destroy Earth if they don't race.

To put it short, absoulutly pathetic, even for a racing game.

GAMEPLAY
Well, I must say that the gameplay does kinda make up for the rubbish storyline. There are five different modes to play on, although two can only be played with 2 or more people, so I haven't really looked into those at the moment.

Adventure Mode is the main part of the game. Here, you basically save the world from N Oxide using your band of (uncaring) Earthlings. There are eight characters to choose from: Crash Bandicoot (of course), Dr Neo Cortex (again, of course), Tiny Tiger, Coco Bandicoot, N Gin, Dingodile, Polar (Crash's little polar bear) and Pura (Coco's little tiger). Each character has his or her own strengths and weaknesses. For example, Pura takes curves very very easily, but as a result he is very slow. On the opposite end of the scale is Dingodile. His kart zooms through the track with great speed, but his turns are extremely loose.

Once you've picked your character, you are warped to the Adventure Arena, a giant world divided into five smaller worlds. There are many race-tracks to play in here. Drive onto any active warp vortex, and you're away.

Now, in all honesty, the racing in CTR is superior to CNK. The karts handle better, act less slipperly, and generally move with more ease. You basically race around three laps of your chosen track. Along the way, you collect Wumpa Fruit and Weapons. Wumpa Fruit "juice" your kart and make it go faster. Collecting ten wumpa fruit "juices" your weapons. The weapons can help you or hinder your oppodents whilst on the way to glory. These consist of things such as Turbo Boosts, Bombs, and of course the classic TNT crate. All I'll say anywhere else is watch out for the Warp Orb. If you get this, use it...it'll turn everything around for you. If you're lucky.

The race tracks are quite spectacular, to say the least. Even the most annoying to play on look quite good. At least 2/3 of these tracks have some kind of sneaky shortcut built into them, some not always noticable to the naked eye.

Anyway, if you come in first place after 3 laps, you win a trophy. You can then go back into the track to collect CTR tokens and relics. CTR tokens are awarded for collecting the letters C,T and R that are scattered around the track and still finishing in first place. Relics are awarded by racing through the tracks as quickly as possible. Beat the time, win the relic. What could be easier?

After you win all four trophies in each world, you will be challenged by the area boss. You will race him on his personal track and, if you beat him, you will win a key. You need all four boss keys to challenge N Oxide and save the Earth.

The last collectable items are gems. You win these by making your way through the five "Gem Cups". Here, you race across four different tracks for points, not trophies. Whoever has the most points at the end of the four tracks will win a gem and unlock a character. Beware the purple gem challenge though...you'll be racing the bosses on their home turfs.

Bored with Adventure Mode? There's always Arcade Mode. You can try out any track with any character you've unlocked. It's a useful thing to try out each character to see who performs the best and where. The only gripe is that the character line-up is the same every time. Tthe line up is ALWAYS Crash-Neo Cortex-Tiny-Coco-N Gin-Dingodile-Polar-Pura, with no way of swapping the characters around unless you're are playing as one of them. Even if you use a bonus character, the line-up is ALWAYS the same, meaning that poor Pura is left out every single time.

Speaking of time, there is also Time Trial. Here, you race as fast as you can over each track. If you're fast enough, N Tropy will challenge you. If you beat his times, N Oxide will challenge you. You'll also unlock a new character for beating N Tropy...you can probably guess who that is.

FINER DETAILS
I must say that the track levels, once again, look very very detailed. There's no denying that. Some, like N Gin Labs and Cortex Castle, look more detailed than most. Shame I can't say much about the characters, who look hopelessly cruddy and completly "off".

The sound and music gets me in a similar dilemma...the track music is good to great on several tracks. Again, Cortex Castle has the best for me. However, the characters, once again, let it down. They repeat the same quotations again and again, some are pathetically cheesy, and some don't even sound to convincing. I'll leave it at that.

DIFFICULTY
Non-existant I'm afraid. I beat Oxide on my very first go. And I managed to repeat it eight more times (one for each character). In direct comparison, it took me ten goes to out-do Velo, and it still takes me at least 2 each time I play. It may have somethnig to do with the fact that I played CNK first, but the truth is that I often ran into much more of Oxide's hazards than Velo's, so I have to put it down to the fact that CNK was simply harder.

Oh, and by the way, I only noticed the shortcut for Oxide after my 6th attempt. That only made beating him easier. And NO, I will NOT share the shortcut here, that would be pointless.

OVERALL
Very disapointing, and not what it was cracked up to be. The racing is better than CNK's by quite a way, but in every other catergory, CNK dominates by a landslide. It is pretty fun wile it lasts though. Buy if you must, but if you don't like CNK, I suggest you simply avoid Crash's racing games.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/05/06