Forget Call of Duty, Real Men Need the Retro Love: Crash Team Racing

Crash Bandicoot has, more or less, faded into obscurity. The kind of obscurity that only deeply irritating little ginger bastards can be banished to. In his mid-nineties heyday, the furry funster brought us a trio of pretty damn great platformers, full of eye-meltingly garish colors and general wonderment. Since then, sadly, his Sonic-like dickish ‘personality' and general suckitude has seen him relegated to gaming's Z-list.

But let's not get our piss-take on too much. After all, Crash was the only one who ever came close to out-Mario Kart-ing Mario Kart. Over the years, everyone from Metal Gear Solid's cyborg ninja Gray Fox to the Crazy ‘effing Frog have tried that, so it's quite a feat.

Hold on to your butts, because Crash Team Racing is incoming.

This kart racer hit the PlayStation in 1999. It introduces another crazy character to the series' gaggle of psychopaths: Nitrous Oxide. This ugly-ass alien descends on the Bandicoot's home planet and delivers an ultimatum; demanding that the world's best racer challenge him. If he wins, he will tarmac the entire planet for use as his own private racetrack.

Or some B.S like that. Still, he should've just waited fourteen years. In 2013, big business bastards with bulldozers on rainforest-ravaging missions are doing that for him, right here on Earth.

But we're careening off topic. The point is, the bandicoot and his friends gathered to compete, with the victor facing Oxide in a final race for the planet. This gave the game a little depth, and made for one of the very few toon-tastic racers with what passed for a ‘plot' (scratch your ass and you'll miss it) and a story mode. The single player element is often pretty half-assed in these offerings, but the series of arenas and boss races this provided worked rather well.

More importantly, the core gameplay is as solid as a very solid thing indeed. The karts handle perfectly (unlike fellow PS1 racer Speed Freaks, which gave the impression you were cruising through a jell-o swamp on wheels made of marshmallow), the track designs are good and the power ups are fiendishly effective and straight from the Crash Bandicoot games. Those famous explosive crates which would blow your gonads off in the platformers are here, as is the homing-missile-of-fiery-death that is the time warp ball, among others.

The presentation is great too, the visuals and music are as cutesy and spangly as you could ask for. In 1999, this was quite the sexy beast. Crash Team Racing's shortcoming is its cast of characters, which is obscure and craptacular compared to Nintendo's own. To make up the numbers, we're lumbered with such ballaches as a tiny polar bear and a tiny tiger cub, who made cameo appearances earlier in the series. Just how much do you have to suck to be one of Crash Bandicoot's entourage?

Nevertheless, this was a fine rival for Mario Kart 64. Now, enjoy that sweet, warming glow around the pants area that only comes from watching some nostalgic video game footage. Or, presumably, pissing yourself:

Source of images: gamefaqs.