Why Crash Team Racing still leaves Mario in the dust

The youth of today may not remember a time when virtual life was not lived in 1080p; when the streets of New York were conveniently covered in a poisonous gas cloud in Spiderman games to avoid tricky animation and the only way to get away from Lara Croft’s irritating butler was to lock him in the walk-in freezer.

They probably won’t remember a time when video game discussion was not dominated by the epic battles between PS4 and Xbox One, Battlefield and Call of Duty and, to a lesser extent, Pro Evolution Soccer and FIFA.

Those born post 2000 are likely to have no idea which rivalry provided the backdrop to my early formative years. For most, the concept of owning two consoles at this time was a bourgeois pipe-dream so the side you were on was the side you stuck to; willing to fight to the death for your chosen hero even if this gesture became slightly empty when repeated resurrections were just a box smash away.

I’m talking, of course, about the competition between Crash Bandicoot and Mario.

After several releases with not much to separate them, the two went wheel to wheel in the race for supremacy following the release of Crash Team Racing in 1999. The hugely successful Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64 forced Sony to produce an alternative for Playstation owners and, at the risk of having blindly loyal Mario Kart fans call for my execution, the result was undoubtedly the superior game; unmatched by anything before or since in the karting game genre some 15 years on.

CTR’s original PS1 Cover. Photo: wikipedia.org

This may be an unpopular opinion among defenders of Mario, who will say that Sony blatantly stole Nintendo’s innovative idea and point at the continued success of Mario Kart games up to the present day, while Crash has drifted into obscurity after Naughty Dog moved on to other projects and subsequent Crash games by other developers, kart or otherwise, have been below par.

But to instantly dismiss CTR for these reasons is like refusing to watch any animated comedy that isn’t The Simpsons or read any play that isn’t Shakespeare; if you look in the huge shadows caused by the original and the iconic, you find their arguable equals in South Park and Ibsen, respectively.

CTR succeeds where Mario Kart fails in its Adventure Mode, simply in the fact that it has one. It is never really shown in Mario Kart why the characters are racing each other and, while simplistic, the story of CTR solves this problem quite nicely and gives the player an aim, which is sorely lacking in Mario’s Gran Prix.

While lazing around Down Under, Crash is awoken by a space ship landing on Earth. The alien inside, Nitrous Oxide, is the fastest racer in the galaxy and plans to turn Earth into a parking lot, but makes the classic arrogant villain mistake by giving Crash and co the opportunity to save themselves if they can beat him in a race. Thus, the Earthlings race each other for the opportunity to face Oxide and the player moves through 4 areas collecting trophies, each with 4 tracks and a boss battle, before the final showdown.

But it doesn’t end there; each track also has a CTR token and relic that can be obtained by replaying, eventually leading to another more difficult battle with Oxide and the unlocking of boss characters if enough are collected.

While the early stages will not provide much of a challenge if you have power sliding nailed down, CTR has many layers that increase in difficulty the deeper you delve. It may be easier at 20 than when I was a lad of 5 that didn’t understand the logic in braking for a corner, but completing the game to 100% (as its addictive quality urges you to do) takes a good deal of skill and is incredibly satisfying.

Several other game modes give the game an all-round appeal; whether you want to race your friends, blow them up or simply fill all the time trial high scores with rude words, there’s something for everyone.

The controls are smoother than in any driving game since and the graphics, while not PS4 standard, are good for a game three generations old and achieve the cartoony style that the Crash universe has always had while delivering a healthy dose of nostalgia for any gamer whose first console was pre-PS2.

So the next time your degree pushes you to breaking point, don’t spend £3.99 on a tub of Ben & Jerry’s or some value vodka – get on Playstation Network and try something that won’t lead to an inevitable headache and feeling of self-loathing; procrastination paradise is just a 90 second download away! [divider_top]

Header Image: taringa.net. Other Images: wikipedia.org, crashbandicoot.wikia

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