19 May 2013

Review: CRT: Crash Team Racing (Playstation)

I am very sorry for the gap of nothingness on VGL, I have been very busy reviewing games for the site I am currently writing for - and there it is focus on newer games which fall out of this blogs scope. But fear not, my dear readers, as I have recently decided to do the occasional Playstation/N64/Saturn-review on here as well - which should bump up the frequenzy if only with a fraction. Today I finished Crash Team Racing, or CRT for short, and I do have a few things to say about this game.

First off, I want to point out that this never found its way into my collection as a young gamer so there will be no nostalgic values hidden in the background. This is quite frankly something I regret, I would like to say I played it way back because that would have been a good thing. The sense of speed in this game is extremely good, so good in fact that it can compete with the rest of the bunch of kart racers from that time. I thought I was in for a fan service game with nothing more than a tired clone of a core - but then again it is Naughty Dog we are dealing with here.

It looks great, it runs smooth as butter, the action is solid, it gets really challenging in the later stages and there is plenty of fun stuff to do apart from just playing through the so called "adventure mode". There is  also an arcade mode, VS/battle, time trials, challenges and the list goes on.

There is eight different characters from the Crash Bandicoot universe to choose from right off the bat and you navigate between the levels through hub worlds. This makes for a perfect opportunity to try out the controls and practice on moves you recently got explained to you.

My only gripe with this game is the bosses. In the end of each hub world you get to compete with a boss one on one - with the boss laying out traps and exploding stuff like there was no tomorrow. This might sound like a reasonable decision for a "boss fight" - but maybe not all of them. It is the same thing throughout the whole game, which effectively takes away any sense of surprise or excitement about the bosses.

Other than that, it is a competent kart racer with a lot of speed, action and fun. I would recommend it to anyone that likes the Mario Kart-games.

Oh, by the way. CRT made me regret not buying Crash Bandicoot 2 and 3 (I only played the first one and The Wrath of Cortex) so these are now on my "to buy"-list. When they are purchased and finished they will surely be reviewed as well.