It's no news that the last word used to describe the Crash Bandicoot series would be sanity. And that sounds strange, since we are talking about a kart racing videogame. But yes, sanity isn't a word to be used to describe this game either.

Mario Kart 64 started the genre of the weapon-based racing games, but then, Crash Bandicoot and his crew wanted to join and overhauled the game. In 1999, Crash Team Racing (CTR, for short), appeared for the PSX, and it demonstrated, once again, how much distant is the concept of sanity from Crash. The circuits were more technical than in Mario Kart, and some featured shortcuts, sometimes only available by blasting any door/wall/thing blocking our way. Also, instead of having shells and banana peels as weapons, it included bombs, homing missiles and TNT crates, and also the option to increase the power of the weapons through the Wumpa Fruit.

CTR was indeed a very good game. Not long after, in 2003, the sequel, if it can be called that, appeared: Crash Nitro Kart (CNK, for short). The mechanics for driving were the same, with a little tweak: now the karts had the option to hide their wheels and somehow hover over the circuit using some kind of electromagnetism, a mechanic that made the circuits even more twisty and complicated. Not much changed about the weapons, just one or two new additions, but that's all. Of course, a new storyline, different characters and a lot of nostalgia to those that played CTR before it.

Graphics: CTR was very well received on this aspect, and CNK didn't disappoint either. The characters and karts are very stylized, while the backgrounds for the circuits and maps are very detailed and elaborated. The animations are a good aspect too, funny instances aside, either in the various cutscenes and in-race. When the character was hit by, or crashed into, a weapon, the screen lightens up a second, leaving you with a complete blank screen and your character doing rollovers, frozen solid or electrocuted, depending on the weapon that caused the ravage. Rating of 9 to graphics.

Sound: Crash Bandicoot isn't a series remembered for its music, and in this game passes almost unnoted. The in-game sounds are well though: the engine sound changing when racing on wheels or hovering, the weapons hitting the racers... The voices... Well, not the best I've heard, but still good enough. And I think that's all regarding sound, so the rating given is 8.

Addictiveness: Racing games, in order to be called half-good, have to be addictive. You have to feel you want to race again. And this game can bring you that feeling. The many different circuits, challenges and modes will keep you playing for a while, and after that, racing for pure joy starts, and you don't get tired of it easily. Addictiveness has deserved a 10.

Story: This time, instead of the terrestrials receiving the visit of an alien racer, are the terrestrials who go visit the alien racer, and when I say visit, I say they were abducted by the alien racer onto his planet. The championship is held in an entire galaxy, with four of its planets holding races with their respective local champions to be beaten. After that, of course, is the grandmaster, the final boss, ruler of the galaxy and the responsible for abducting Crash, Cortex and the rest. The story could be better if the local champions didn't use personal weapons in the race, but just the normal available weapons for you, as the final boss does (a final boss playing fair? What is this sorcery?). There are more things to do besides racing, like the CNK challenges and collecting the time relics, but in my opinion, that's out of place, the same as the battles. Story earns a 7 for this.

Depth: Although the story isn't very long, there are two teams to use, the blue team (Crash) and the red team (Cortex). Both have their own cutscenes, and also endings, which means you have two story modes to pass. Not only that, to really beat the game you need the time relics, and it's not an easy thing. You can be good at setting the best time in a race, but can you be equally good at collecting things around a stage in a limited amount of time? After that, we have the four Cups, which encase all of the circuits available for racing. Winning each of them awards you a new racer, and there are still four more to unlock in other different ways, such as beating all time trials, a total of 12. Indeed, that can take some time, so depth earns an 8.

Difficulty: The races aren't very difficult. The difficulty starts with the local champions, as they each use different weapons not available for you, so the first time expect it to be an experiment over what happens if I get hit by this. Also, the local champions are incredibly fast, so you must give it your best shot in order to not lose. And the final boss... At least he doesn't do a jump start like in CTR. He mainly uses bombs and homing missiles, so be ready for some mayhem. Also, he's astoundingly fast, and the track isn't an easy one, since it's the first time you'll race there, and it's very very long, with four different zones that can influence greatly on your driving. Hard, but not impossible, just try again over and over. The time relics are, as I said, out of place. I didn't like the idea back in CTR, and I still don't like it. I think that these arenas shouldn't exist, even more if the idea is brought over to other games like Mario Kart Double Dash. For everything else, I see no further difficulty, so the final rating is 8.

Overall: Nice as a racing game, but not that good overall, mainly for that battle mode. Where are the times where videogames comprised just one subject for the entire game, racing games didn't involve anything else, fighting games didn't involve anything else...? I know there are still some examples out there (Gran Turismo for racing and a couple of Dragon Ball games for fighting, although lately they fall out of this category), but the whole vision about videogames is walking a new path that the majority of old players would change if they could.

Nice work on this review. I definitely want to try the game now. It sounds pretty good.