Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is a fun and complex kart racer. Boasting mechanics that are now genre standards, CTR's return shows just how relevant it still is. With additional features to fit into modern times like difficulty settings and graphics, this is a must-have for fans of the original, and for anyone who enjoys kart racing with friends.

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled’s difficulty, memorable track design, and addictive Power Slide mechanic make it a kart racer worth playing, especially competitively (though new players should check out a guide or two first). In single-player it’s richer than what the genre normally provides, but at the expense of a cheap and unforgiving Adventure mode design that can become overly frustrating. Overall, a new HUD, cosmetic options, and the ability to swap characters during the campaign mean there’s simply no contest between playing this and the 1999 original.

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled's sheer amount of content and modes make it the best kart racer value on the market today. Packing both skill and charm, this is one title worth its weight in Wumpa Fruits.

Crash Team Racing has long been remembered fondly by players and Beenox's Nitro-Fueled remaster proves, for the most part, we haven't been blinded by nostalgia.

Bandicoots, start your engines.

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is an unexpectedly ambitious remaster that puts a fresh coat of paint on the accessible and deep kart racer. With a robust adventure mode that serves as a great introduction for new players and a welcome challenge for veterans, plus a varied roster of characters and tracks that feel just as vibrant and detailed as the remaster of the Crash trilogy, the title is more than capable of appealing to players of all skill levels. Not every aspect of the game shines brightly, as a lacking battle mode, overly-lengthy progression and a rough online launch put a damper on t...

Not just a 1 to 1 remake like Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled comes with the content you love from the original as well as additional tracks from a later entry in the series as well, proving that everybody's favorite Bandicoot still has plenty of gas in the tank.

7-year-old Chris would have been proud of 25-year-old me. I’d finally conquered Crash Team Racing’s Adventure Mode, putting Nitros Oxide back in his place and saving the world from being turned into Oxide’s plaything. I’d nailed shortcuts, perfected the drift boost mechanism, and even unlocked a neat Red Panda skin for Polar. What more could I ask for? Very little, it turns out.

Once I changed the controls to something more comfortable, I had a blast playing through the well-crafted adventure mode and all the tracks and challenges that reside in it, even if the CPU players had the rubber band effect.

Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled not only succeeds as a loving and faithful adaptation of the classic PS1 release, but it has been turbo-boosted by a glut of welcome new content including characters, tracks, and modes. Though it occasionally shows its age in course design, and erratically pumps the brakes with a surprising difficulty spike, Nitro-Fueled remains a fast and fun kart racer, sure to please old fans and worthy of a test drive from new ones.

Future Grand Prix events are set to add characters from the Spyro the Dragon franchise, which is sure to be exciting for fans of PS1-era platformers. It's safe to say that anyone who has nostalgia for Spyro or Crash will likely have a great time with Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, and while the difficulty will be polarizing, the game is stuffed with content, and since it's available at a budget price, picking it up is a no-brainer.

On a lot of levels, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is a resounding success. This Beenox recreation of the 20-year-old original looks and sounds fantastic, and it plays just like it did back in the day. For fans, it's about as good a remake as you could hope for, but we're not quite convinced that a prettified retread is enough of a jump.