Crash Team Racing

"Crash delivers the fourth in a great series, this with kart-racing"

Crash Team Racing is the fourth game in a trademark series from Sony, first appealing to us with platformers like Crash Bandicoot 1, and Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. The third in the series was undoubtedly one of the best games on PSone, and the fourth is looking like a contender, taking a new twist with a new genre - kart-racing.

Crash Team Racing (from here-on-in CTR) is much like Mario Kart 64, and takes a few one-player ideas from Diddy Kong Racing. This game blends the best into one, with great characters, colourful tracks, good track design, awesome multi-player, a multitude of great weapons, and good graphics and sound.

Gameplay: 9/10
Brilliant. Not an original idea, but the genre is almost perfectly in regards to gameplay with this game. It has a good storyline (explained below) many well-known characters, a few secret ones, a lot of multi-player unlockables, and all the weapons, shortcuts, turbo boosts and obstacles blend together very well.

Track design is good, with (unless I am mistaken) at least one shortcut on each track, with hard tracks like the pyramid track having 3, or 4 (if you are curious enough) shortcuts, with can turn a computer game easy, and a multi-player battle very, very competitive.

One-player is pretty deep (if not relatively easy after a while) with three modes - trophy, CTR challenge and time trial. Trophy is just the normal one, come first you get a trophy, you need these to progress through the game and unlock bosses. The CTR challenge is when you need to collect the letters C, T, and R, scattered around the track, sometimes in difficult places. Did I mention you also need to come first? In time trial you can get sapphire, gold or platinum (platinum becoming a challenge however). You need to get all gold in time trial if you want to 101% the game. (Yes, 101%, following the trend started in Crash 3). Time trial has no weapons or other players, and you need to rely on getting every turbo, and perfectly each powerslide if you want platinum.

Story: 9/10
The story is original and amusing, if not following the style of previous Crash games. An alien called (funnily enough) Nitrous Oxide comes to Earth, and wants to race some good drivers in a bid to save their planet. If they win, he will leave in peace, if he wins, he wants to turn the whole place into a giant parking lot! The cutscene at the beginning and end are well-made, but it's a shame there isn't anymore during gameplay.

Graphics/Sound: 7/10
The graphics can be just a bit glitchy in regards to the interaction with the track, but the effects like when driving on ice, or getting a turbo boost at the start are good, and weapon effects are well done too, with rockets homing in or bananas on the field, and even the usual skid-marks.

With the mention of rockets, the sounds effects blend in well too, even when playing multiplayer. The music is also pretty good, but nothing great, and they soon just become part of the background. Characters screams etc. are amusing at first, but just blend in later, or even get annoying (though kind of in a good way).

Controls: 10/10
Easy. L1 and R1 to powerslide, O for weapons, square for brake (although you don't really use this) and X for acceleration. D-Pad to control, or the sticks. You will want an analog controller for this game, the vibration really adds to the feel.

Replay Value: 7/10
Once you beat one-player once it's gets pretty boring. Time trial offers a challenge, but that's about it. If you have a friend or brother/sister readily available it can become fun, but a few months with have this one on the shelves unless you really enjoy racing games.

Conclusion:
I give this game an 8, even though it has many good aspects and features, it is easy and gets quickly boring unless you like racing games or want to beat your times.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/01/05