As someone who is an avid fan of racing games, both big and small, getting the opportunity to check out Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled was quite fun. I’ll state now that I’ve never played the Crash Racing series growing up as I mainly owned hand held gaming consoles, plus the PlayStation 1 and original Xbox. Boy, did I miss out! My hands-on time was with the PlayStation 4 version of the game.
Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled is the latest title being published by Activision and developed by Beenox. It’s set to come to Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch on June 21st, 2019. As some of you may know, the first Crash Team Racing was created by Naughty Dog. Naughty Dog was quite known for games such as Jak and Daxter, Uncharted, as well as The Last of Us. Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled itself is a remaster, it’ll include tracks from both the original Crash Team Racing and Crash Nitro Kart. There will be a total of 31 in-game tracks. During my hands-on I was able to play two of the Crash Team Racing tracks: Papu’s Pyramid and Sewer Speedway, and two remastered Crash Nitro Kart tracks: Clockwork Wumpa and Electron Avenue.
Papu’s Pyramid provided a nice entry into what to expect, but as I stated once before, I am new to the series so it was rough. I quickly learned a few things during my first couple of laps. Soon I was ready to take down the 3 others playing alongside me, but I still did poorly when trying to drift or just braking so hard that I’d stop during a turn. Guess this will mean I’ll need much more practice with the game once it releases. One of the most memorable tracks that I played was the Electron Avenue track. We all had fun taking tight turns, making big jumps and trying our best to come in first place against both each other and the AI. One of the other maps, Clockwork Wampa, had us keeping an eye out for numerous traps along the track! As you’ll be able to guess each of us hit these traps, which lead to our demise and a laugh. Worrying my fate on the next lap would be to fall into the trap, or if I would slip by and have another player take the hit was always in the back of my mind. Sewer Speedway is where all of our skills shone as we were doing quite well by that time and starting to get the hang of the game’s mechanics.
During the play session, we were informed that the game itself will feature 4-player split-screen during the battling and the races. As previously stated we were playing on the PlayStation 4 version build of the game. I thought to myself and even stated, this is a perfect addition to the game and the formats it’s coming to. With the Nintendo Switch getting ever more co-op and versus multiplayer modes, I expect to see some fans bring games such as Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled along with them on long rides, hanging out with friends, or even to events.
Beenox has made sure to bring the best of classic games to the new generation in an updated fashion. From the fluid controls after getting the hang of things, to the marvelous graphics on each of the tracks, I can’t wait to see what other tracks will play like. The controls for Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled differ quite a bit from other racing games. This gives you some more nuanced actions to take such as intentional drifting, and visual cues for power boosts.
Overall, I can see myself wanting to pick up Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled on more than one format. Beenox has made sure to keep it going with what people will remember in the classics and add some flare. Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled is set to stun fans of all ages. You can expect to see a few of us here at Marooners’ Rock wanting to dig into Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled in streaming and simply having a good time with others on top of our further coverage of the game.
