I love a good kart racing game; of the last two generation of consoles they are the only racers that I have gone out of my way and purchased. It’s not that I don’t like racing games, I tend to just like to play them in a more casual sense. Once I’ve blast through the main single player content, I generally just dip in and out of the online modes from time to time for a short burst of fun.
So Crash Team Racing ought to be right up my street, especially when you consider that I really enjoyed Team Sonic Racing, which I’m still having bags of enjoyment with. But the game has left me a little underwhelmed, it is without a shadow of doubt beautifully crafted with ample amount of content. But for all the fun that it provides, it cannot make up for the many flaws and frustrations I had with it.
I never played the original version on the PlayStation, so I don’t have the nostalgia that a lot of other gamers might have going into the game from the get-go. To start with the good, the game is utterly gorgeous, the cartoony visuals and aesthetics are fantastic and ooze off the screen. The number of racetracks is astonishing and supply the game with plenty of different modes. You have your basic cup races that are four races long, a time trials mode, and a battle mode where you use power ups against other players in one big arena.
And then there is the marquee adventure mode which is a scant story that takes you through each of the racetracks. There are three challenges in each track that you can get through, finish first in a normal race, the CTR challenge where you must find the hidden letters CTR somewhere in the track, and lastly you have the Relic Race. I really enjoyed the Relic Races, you have a small amount of time to finish three laps, but you can collect numbered boxes that pause the timer.
The single player content is quite rich, and like Team Sonic Racing there is also a currency progression system. You earn this currency by taking part in the game’s content, no matter what it is. The more successful you are the bigger the reward. You get to spend this money in the Pit Stop, this is the store where you can buy characters, skins and other special items. The prices might be a bit on the steep side, but if you play the game a fair amount, your reward money swiftly stacks up. Unlike some other gamers I rather like this sense of progression, it’s nice to be rewarded for your effort, and then spend it on what you want, knowing that there is always more things to collect. There are no paid micro-transactions thus far, but I would not be surprised if this was to change at some point, Activision added them into Black Ops 4 not longer after its initial release.
Away from the single player content, you have the multiplayer online modes, where you can either race against other people or duke out in the battle mode. The netcode has worked perfectly fine from my experience, so I had none of the apparent lag issues that plagued the game when it was first released.
As with most first-person shooters and fighting games, racing games are my casual fix. As I stated earlier, after completing most of the initial single player content, I generally just play the online modes from time to time, when I’m either bored or just listening to a podcast. The online in CTR is easy to set up and its fun for the most part, but my frustrations begin with the power ups that are too abundant for the players to pick up. It does not help that are way too overpowered for my liking, and influence the flow of a race more than any other kart racer that I have ever played. And to be honest they aren’t that different at face value. You have your usual missiles and boosters, but the impact they have is disproportionate in my opinion. It makes the experience too chaotic and cuts away any rhythm to the action. I am open to changing my mind on this the better that I get at the game, but one of the reasons why I keep going back to Team Sonic Racing is because the racing flows so much better. And the team mechanics make the experience unpredictable but not cheap in its difficulty.
Another issue is the boost mechanic, you will have to master this particular manoeuvre if you want any chance of winning against the rubber banding AI. You must basically hold the drift button on a hard turn and then press the jump button, which then prompts the meter in the bottom right of the screen to fill up. You then have to press the other slide button at the right time to generate a boost. It took me a while to get a grasp of doing this, but I really struggled at first because my timing was never quite right. I don’t have a problem with this mechanic per se, it just feels out of place in what I look for in these types of games. With that said, the controls and feel of the vehicles were generally responsive and perfectly fine.
In conclusion I just haven't enjoyed Crash Team Racing as much as I'd thought, for the reasons that I have explained, it just hasn’t stuck with me. It’s not that the game is too difficult or technical for what it is, I just think some of the core gameplay components make it feel like too much of a chore just to drop in for the occasional hour or so. Despite my issues with the game I can see why it sits on a 88 score on a Metacritic, although mine would be closer to 70.
