Crash Team Racing

"Mario Kart or 3... 2... 1... Smurf?"

Platforming heroes have done it, Film heroes have done it after a platforming game and even Star Wars have done it. What am I talking about, A kart racing game that is what! You see Super Mario Kart was one of the first games to have a cute fantasy racing game with power ups, many gammes followed over the years such as Diddy Kong in Diddy Kong Racing, Street Racer, The Smurfs in 3... 2... 1... Smurf, Speed Freaks and Speed Punks, Sonic the Hedgehog in Sonic R, Shrek in his racing game, Wacky Races twice and even Darth Maul against Jar Jar Binx in Star Wars Bombad racing. This time, It is Crash Bandicoot's turn at the wheel.

I'LL GET YOU YET, BANDICOOT!

It is a mix between three games. Sonic R, Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing. It is like Sonic R because of the backgrounds and style of levels, ramps, hills and glitch filled walls. It inherits Mario kart's battle areana and style of power ups. Finally, it uses Diddy Kongs Racing select a race (driving around a nice big world in search for levels) and finding icons in a level to advance, of course it is just as annoying as the icons which are C T R letters and are usually hundred of yards out of the track. Come on, I buy kart racing games to have fun on, not to be frustrated by!

A large number of Crash Bandicoot characters are available to control, each with their own speech, laughs and screams, however if you control Coco will quickly get fed up of her wails every five seconds. Characters for you are Crash Bandicot, Coco Bandicoot, Dr. Neo Cortex, Tiny, Dingo Dile and many other characters, including those you have never seen, or possibly in the background sometimes (Penta Penguin).

The gameplay is a good aspect of Crash Team Racing. You can speed quite fast and turn pretty good without any of the difficulty some games gave you (some cars from Grand Theft Auto for example). By driving in to a power up icon, you get a power up with can increasue your speed for a few seconds, some weapons to throw at people and stuff to leave on the track. Quite boring considering must of the stuff is avoidable.

The backgrounds and track design are very bring and very colourful, Hoever, they often have pieces missing in the tracks and is quite a game for glitches, good effort on the water effects though.

Crash Bandicoot is just your normal above average kart racing game, don't bother buying it if you own a game like Mario Kart or Speed Freaks though!

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/22/02, Updated 09/22/02