CTR: Crash Team Racing-Nitro Fueled


Game's cover

About the Game

Back in the 1992, there was game that took the gaming industry by strom and that was Super Mario Kart for the SNES console. Since then plenty of developers tried to emulate the project for their own respective hardware. Games such as Playstation Crash Racing , Sega's Sonic racing,the Gameboy Advance's Digimon Racing, Square' Enix Chocobo racing and plenty of licenced games susch cartoon networks and Nickolodeons racing, smurf kart, M&Ms, Disney, looney tunes and plenty of others, which going through every single one will be alot. Needles to say although there were plenty of games inspired by it, it was only a few of them that manage to succesfully make legacy of their own. One of them was Sony's Crash Team Racing in 1999 which was developed by Naughty Dog. The game had a similar formula with Mario Kart and had the beloved Sony characters from Crash Bandicoot. Since then the game had 9 more installments and the latest one was a succesfull remaster in 2019. CTR: Crash team racing-nitro fueled was developed by Beenox a studio that helped in developing plenty of games such as Call of Duty, Spiderman(NOT the 2018),skylanders and helped with plenty of Game's pc Ports. As briefly mentioned CTR is a remaster of the original 1999 Crash team racing, however given that the game had plenty of other games, the developers made a team decision of adding various properties from the past Crash kart titles. This included addition of maps, characters, karts and plenty of other life adjustments. Needless to say the game came back with a BAM and not only did it revive a franchise that was long gone ( 14 years since the last ps2 game,9 since the iOS release) but it also won Best racing Game of 2019 in two different Game award shows and also earned plenty of nominations.



Story of the Game

The game offers a story mode where an Alien called Nitros arrives on Earth and claims that if no-one is worthy enough to race him then he will transform Earth into a space parking station and make everyone his slave. This then triggers another cutscene of all the beloved Crash characters from all over the globe preparing their vechicles to challenge Nitros so that they can be the number 1. The Game then drops drops the player straight to the gameplay, where similar to platforming adventure games you move around the hub world and choose a stage to play. However, instead of the player walking and running around ,they simply drive around until they go into the doors that represent the levels that they wish to play. While in a hub area the players re required to collect specific items such as keys in order to proceed to the next hub world. To be more specific getting the materials will unlock a boss battle which will then reward the challenger with the key in order to proceed. Speaking of boss battles, after succesfully placing 1st in all of the maps, the boss room will be available.

How do Boss battles play?

Similar to a normal race, the boss battles require the player to finish first in the 1 vs 1 race. Unlike a normal 1 vs 1, the boss of the respective level will move faster than the average player and will also constanlty release powerups on their way without having the need to collect boxes containing them. Most of the power ups are in the form of TNT and bombs. Placing first will reward the player by unlocking the character (boss) and a few customizable cosmeticks going along with that character such as stickers and others.
The aim of the game is simple, race through all of the maps, defeat all the bosses until you succesfully make your way to Nitros, and challenge him for the fate of Earth. Needless to say, the story of the game is not something special nor unique but lets be honest this is not a game someone will pick for it's story mode but more or less for it's gameplay,nevertheless it's inclusion is a pleasant one. .

GamePlay

The gameplay of the game is very simple and friendly to every new comer. Holdin X will always allow the player to move straight and keep their on movement. Releasing X will slowly lead to that Car's enginepause. Square is used for breaks, but also for reversed when tilting the stick backwards. Keep in mind unlike other games using the breaks and tilting side ways will not cause the car to drift. Circle is used to use the power ups that are collected from crates. L1 Or R1 are used to drift. Drifting helps on turns, but when used corectly they can reward the player with a boost. In order to power slide and gain boost after the drift, hold down either R1 or L1 and the direction they player wants to turn. Then there are three things to notice , however noticing one of them is enough. One of them is through the riptires and the another one is the exhaust of the kart. When drifting smoke will come out of the exhaust and from the tires . The smoke will slowly receive a flaming effect. This means that when the right button is pressed the car will boost. The final way is the speedometer, The speedometer is placed down left in the form of a bar.While drifting the metter will slowly be full. Before becoming complete press the appropriate button. Boosting can be achieved three times, per drift and upon finishing third one , the player will be rewarded with extra boost that last longer. But Which is the appropriate button. This is up to the players preference. As mention, the state of drifting is achieved with either L1 or R1. If a player chooses to hold down L1, they should tap R1 for the boost, and if they choose to use R1 to drift, then L1 should be tapped. Triangle is used to change the UI of the speedometer. Speedometer is what the player should look when drifting. L2 is used to adjust the camera distance from the player and L2 allows the player to look behind them. The game also offers more mechanism that can give more speed to a player or even to help them avoid a hit. For example, L1 or R1 before going into drift they cause the car to jump. When there is a jumping pad or in general the car is on a higher level jumpng down, taping one of the buttons will give the player a bigger jump which upon landing will grant the player boost. Last but not least if the player picks up a tnt, constantly tapping L1/R1 will kick the tnt of the car avoiding the explotion

Maps and customizable

Theres a total of 40 unique maps for the player to expirience and plenty of Heroes for them to choose from. Some of the maps are huge while others are smaller. All of them are beatifully design and have plenty of secret shortcuts that require the player to have certain skils to reach them and certain observation skills in order to spot them. All of the maps are available from day one including the ones that were added later on. It is worth mentioning how certain maps have traps that can be used by any player who crushes on the crate, which acts like a lever. These special crates are represented like a normal crate but instead of the symbol "?" they have "!". Furtermore each map also contain wumpa fruits scattered around or within a special jail like crate. Wumpa fruits are used to give the racers more speed and better version of certain power ups. The karts and the heroes though its a different story. Some of the heroes are available from the get go, some of them require the player to defeat them in the story mode while others must be bought with wumpa coins from the sotre. All of the heroes have different colour palletes and legendary outfits with their own unique celebraton. The colour paletes can be unlocked by simply using the character a fair amount of times. For example use baby Crash 5 times, then another 10 then another 15 and so on. However special outfits are only purchaseable from the store. The same can be said with the cars, theres plenty and i mean plenty of customizable options for the cars. Starting from the main body oprtions, to the wheels, to the colour patters, to special patterns all the way to special stickers. Unlike other games none of the heroes NOR cars give special treatment to the player. They can choose which ever vechicle they prefer and the hero of their liking and then select which out of the three play styles the prefer. Thesee are :

Balanced
Most of the stats are the same.
Speed
The car runs faster, however the acceleration and drift are harder to achieved
Drift/ Acceleration
Vechicles are better when drifting and achieve greated momentum when boosting

Game Modes

picture ofthe mappicture ofthe map

First things first when booting the game , the player is placed in the main menu of the game. The story is always the first option to select and it's under the name adventure. Below adventure there is the option for Local Arcade which holds plenty of game modes itself. Below Local there is the Online where the players can race online with either their friends or random players form all over the world. During online races, the player can choose a map for them to race. Following online racing there is the Pit stops where a player can buy items such as heroes,cars,wheels,stickers and many many more. All the items can be unlocked with in game currency BUT the player can also use real money in order to gain in game currency. The shop changes daily and offers plenty of offers. Moving foreward theres the Highscores A.K.A the leadborards and last but not least it's the Wumpa Challenges that have plenty of mini tasks for the player to complete in order to receive more coins and more rewards.

Arcade Mode

Arcade Mode is a must visit otpion for anyone who wish to enjoy their time alone or with some friends for couch Multiplayer. In Local Arcade there is another drop drown list with various playable game modes.
The player can choose to play this game modes alone or In couch multiplayer between 1 to 4 players in total. Multiplayer of two players split the screen horizontally in two. Three and four however, splits the screen in four via a cross. during a three players co-op the bottom right square is displaying the mini-map, and is replaced with the fourth player when four players are selected. the first option in Arcade is Single race. In Single race the plaeyr is given the option to select a specific map to race on. They can also choose how many labs they should complete and whether or not they wish to play the map whilst in mirror mode. Below single race theres the option to participate in a CUP race where four maps are grouped and upon succeeding every map the player is receiving points. These points, stack together and at the end of the last map the top 3 will receive their reward. The better the placement the more points earned. Below that is Battle mode , which has its own uniue maps, powerups and modes. Battle mode also offers various game modes for the player to choose from, what kind of brawl they wish to have and whether or not it's team battle or single. These modes are capture the flag, elimination ,team elimination, deathmatch and team deathmatch.All of themself explanatory. Below battle there's time trial where the task is to finish the race within a specific time limit. Following time trial there's a mode which was added few months after the games release for free and it's called Ring rally. Here, the players have to pass inbetween rings that spawn in the maps to score points. Relic race is next and it's another time trial where the racer must finish within a smaller ammount of time however there are crates that instead of giving an item they freeze the timer. The goal is to finish the race before the timer reaches zero. Second to last is the CTR Race. Ctr race is a normal race however it gives the player an extra task, where they must collect all three Letters of CTR hidden in the map and place first. Last but not least its Crystal chalenge, where 20 crystals are hidden in a map and the task is to collect them all before the timer reaches zero.

Showcases of the game

This is a video showcasing and reviewing the game, with my personal opinion.

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