Lets face it; Kart games are just plain fun. And we all know Mario Kart is the best of the best. But back in the PSone day’s two notable contenders were released. Funcom’s Speed Punks and Naughty Dog’s Crash Team Racing. CTR had great tracks, loads of weapons, and a variety of game modes but still feel short of Mario Kart 64. Speed Punks was not very known, but still brought is better reviews from gaming media. Now Crash is back in the Kart Racing biz on the next-gen consoles with new developers behind him. Crash Nitro Kart is the sequel to the PlayStation game, and it features a number of characters best known for appearing in the Crash Bandicoot platform games. The game follows the standard kart-racing formula, with colorful circuits, booster pads, puddles of oil to slow you down, and, most importantly, crates containing power-ups and weapons. But the execution fall off track as soon as you pick up the controller.

Crash takes some of the best parts of Nintendo's Mario Kart, mixed them up in the Crash Bandicoot world, and farts on the gameplay. In Nitro Kart, Crash is kidnapped by the ruthless Emperor Velo and challenged to race in his coliseum. Now it’s up to you to win all the races, including a final showdown with Velo, and save the Earth from total annihilation. I’m guessing Vicarious Visions plan was to add story elements to spice up the gameplay. Neat idea but with bad execution. Do I give points for trying? No. Every character from any Crash series will be available to race as, ranging from his sister Coco to Cortex. The level designs are far from original, ranging from the classic jungle and space locations to volcanoes, but they do look very solid and detailed. Not only do they look good, but also there seems to be a great variety as well- 17 raceways in total. Also, as with Crash Team Racing, modes include time trial, an adventure mode (where you drive around in a world map and enter races through warps), and multiplayer action will be available as well.

Playing CNK for me boils down to one problem, and easily the greatest downfall, it’s the fact that you don't really go that fast at all. Earning boost after boost and using your power slide must create maximum speeds for you to stand a chance. Yet for some reason, the enemy AI will beat you all the time without the help of boosts and the like. The AI is set at a fixed speed which will leave you eating dirt the first few times round. Until you manage to accumulate higher attributes and discover faster routes around each track, you'll lose. But then when you do this; the AI still stays at the same speed resulting in a race against yourself. Second, Mario Kart offered several courses based on a variety of racing, dirt bike, kart, street racing, whatever. So does crash. It's got the frozen, icy levels, the desert levels, your tubular courses, and the floating-in-mid-air courses. But the problem is they just lack fun. And I think that brings us back to my first complaint. I bet I’ll hate Mario Kart: DD!! Too if I was chasing Donkey Kong at 4 mph.

The main mode to play is Adventure because this is where you unlock items for the game. The main objective as mentioned is to win, but you don't always have to take first place in order to do so because your teammate can win it for you. Yes, you can be in last place and still win if you have a really skilled teammate. Like the new Mario Kart, CNK has also implemented team racing, but rather than being in the same kart, you are in two separate vehicles, yours and that of a teammate's. You may choose any of the three members from your team before the race. Depending on how skilled of a driver you are, you should choose the team member who has the stats that complement your skill level. Each character has its own strengths and weaknesses. For example, the lowest character has ease on taking corners but almost no max speed, while the hardest has almost no turning power but insanely high max speed. Choose your character wisely. Good teamwork is the key to success, which is quite noticeable with the Team Frenzy option, where you and your partner keep relatively close to each other and build up the Frenzy meter. Once this meter is completely filled, you can activate Team Frenzy, where you and your teammate receive a frenzy of power-ups for a short amount of time. You will truly appreciate this feature when you completely turn around a match and speed from last place all the way to first!

Visuals in CNK are solid but the framerate has awful slowdown. Crash Nitro Kart maintains the brightly colored, cartoony look that has been used in past Crash Bandicoot games, though with slightly upgraded graphics. The characters look a bit more polished than their PlayStation counterparts (just a bit), though the choppiness of their movement suggests that their animations were lifted straight out of Crash Team Racing. The sound is respectable, featuring lots of classic Crash music and wacky sound bites from the drivers, the former of which remains acceptable for longer than the latter, because the sound bites get annoying after the first hour or so.

Final Thoughts
In the end the fact that Crash Nitro Kart hit the GameCube only a week before Double Dash!! Killed its chances to be a hit. As long as you own a Cube I see no point of playing CNK when Mario & Co. is out there. Fact is CNK is a good game that suffers from the lack of a sense of speed, hell any speed for that matter! The fact that the racing is so slow kills any possible tension while ripping through tracks. And therefore kills all the fun in the game. Crash Nitro Kart could just as well be called Mario Kart For Dummies. Playing makes you miss the good ol’days when Naughty Dog was in charge of Crash. Oh well maybe Jak Kart will come along one day.