Crash Nitro Kart - PS2

Something of a Mario Kart clone, 1999’s Crash Team Racing was one of PlayStation’s final major releases, appearing just a year before PS2 was released. It does look a little dated by today’s standards, so Vicarious Visions came up with the bright idea to develop a karting sequel for PlayStation 2, ingeniously named Crash Nitro Kart.

Dragging the karting spin-off into the next generation, Crash Nitro Kart doesn’t bring anything particularly new to the series, but the visuals have been updated, boasting cleaner textures, and some great animations and special effects.

But people don’t usually buy racing games to gawk at visual goodness. They want a fast-paced competition that’s always good to come back to, and that's exactly what Crash Nitro Kart is all about. Featuring just about every major character from the Crash universe, including the notorious Neo Cortex, Nitro Kart pits players in 17 high-speed fantasy raceways that take place on volcanoes, futuristic cities and space stations, to name but a few.

The single player game can be played in the style of an adventure, whilst arcade and time trial modes offer a classic racing experience and an incentive to better your lap times. But any racing game’s strongest point is it’s ability to offer frenetic multi-player action, and Nitro Kart doesn’t disappoint. Where Crash Team Racing’s multi-player option came across as a developer afterthought, Nitro Kart is much more extensive, incorporating exclusive battle arenas and even an arena editor for greater longevity.

A typical karting extravaganza, Crash Nitro Kart is everything it was promised to be. more