➤ Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled, the review 🎮

We live in the years of the rebirth of the classics and the triumph of nostalgia. It does not necessarily have to be a good or a bad thing: the videogame sector, like any other, always continues to evolve keeping in mind its past. Sometimes the requests of the players also play a fundamental role, just look at what has happened in the last three years: first the return of Crash Bandicoot and its original trilogy, in the Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy, then that of Spyro in the most recent Reignited Trilogy, and now in June 2019 it's up to Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled, of which you are reading review. After all, it had been for well over three years that the nostalgic owners of the first PlayStation begged to be able to replay (with updated graphics, of course) their favorite racing game, probably the first they had experienced back in 1999. And then here is that Activision has satisfied them, for the third time in a row: Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled is the complete sum of everything that Crash Bandicoot aboard a go-kart has ever been able to offer. But after so long, and in the face of a market now saturated with similar titles, do you still have something to say to today's players? Or is it really just an operation designed for those who framed the custody of the first PlayStation 1 title? Of course, you will soon know what we think by reading ours review.

The remake: an ambitious operation

When you find yourself reviewing a title like Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled, a good reviewer must basically ask himself at least three questions, a basis on which he then goes to think about a myriad of other issues and other details. First question: Crash Team Racing: Is Nitro-Fueled still fun in June 2019 with so much water under the bridge? The water under the bridges is clearly a metaphor that underlines the evolution of racing games over the last twenty years, whether light-hearted or serious. The answer to this first question is "yes". Second question: does the nostalgia effect work? Does it rekindle something in the players of the first Crash Team Racing? Okay, the question has doubled, but you will have understood perfectly well what we mean. And here too the answer is "yes", to both.

Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled, the review

Third and final question: "at the level of technical realization, the remake represents a valid production? "If even in the latter case it is possible to answer" yes ", then Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled really has all the credentials not only to justify its presence on the market, but also to carve out a niche by no means second-rate Since the answer to all the questions is affirmative, you will understand well how Activision scored again - and for the third time in a row - with the fond memories of the players. Twice of which with the same freaked marsupial, by the way. Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled is an ambitious operation. You will not soon have in your hands the "homework" done by lazy developers, but a real creation from scratch, made with love towards the original chapter.

Indeed, towards "the chapters", in the plural, as you should have already guessed from the name of the game. It's called Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled, a jumble of terms that wants to underline how the base is yes the Crash Team Racing of Naughty Dog, but on the latter are then added (in a harmonic addition, not merely content) a large number of elements coming from the following Crash Nitro Kart (Vicarious Visions) e Crash Tag Team Racing (Radical Entertainment). Everything has been redone from scratch, from character designs to individual level details, through menus, main hubs and animations. The player who buys Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled today finds himself in his hands, and at a very fair price, a title that contains something like more than thirty tracks and at least 35 drivers, but still these are momentary numbers because Activision already has confirmed that in the coming weeks new characters, grand prizes and accessories will arrive, for support that (hopefully) will last for at least a couple of years.

Plot and gameplay

Le narrative premises Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled are all in all sufficient, given the context: the game even has a story that tries to justify, once again, the presence of so many characters, good and bad, from the main series of the marsupial. An unfriendly alien with a passion for racing arrives on planet Earth and challenges its inhabitants to a series of races: the fate of humanity will be decided based on who wins. If Crash, Cortex, Coco and company win, then Earth will be left alone; if N. Oxide wins, the planet will become a huge concrete parking lot (which it already is, but details). The adventure mode, the first that will be offered to the player, consists of a series of worlds, each of which contains within it a limited number of tracks (usually four), the same that are then found in the most classic Cups of arcade mode.

Arriving in first place in every single race, the winner unlocks the fight against the boss of the world in question, and can then move on to the next, and this repeatedly until the fight with N. Oxide. Clearly no one forces you to play there adventure mode, where you will necessarily have to participate in the grand prizes provided by the narration and at most repeat the circuits by varying the game mode: the arcade mode offers you, and immediately, all the contents of the game: every single track, every single mode, and the possibility to play with friends too. The gameplay Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled deserves some consideration, and this time around the comparison with the first Crash Team Racing will come in particularly useful. All the power-ups you remember are still there in their place, taken from their respective games and reworked in a very conservative and faithful way. Here, fidelity to the original work is probably a gold medal that Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled takes home immediately, the player is willing to award it to him after just half an hour of play: because it is clear that Activision has faithfully kept the original game next to him all the time, in order to build it from scratch without neglecting any detail.

The aim of the race is clearly to finish first by challenging artificial intelligence, or friends locally and online: the best will remember all the secret passages of each level and the position of the traps, houses and wumpa fruits right away; good for them. All the others will immediately learn how to get the most from the proposed upgrades: we recall in passing the presence of the TNT case, the homing rockets, the bowling bombs, the slow motion stopwatch and many other gadgets. Not all of them are equally useful. Let's go further and let's be honest: compared to the upgrades of similar titles on the market today, those of Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled don't even shine that much. Even some tracks have aged more than others: in linearity and design, even restored and refurbished in 4K, they remain forgettable, especially for the new player who discovers the title for the first time. The nostalgia effect will come to the rescue to all the others, and here everything will be beautiful and unforgettable again, even if it is no longer so (or perhaps it never was, sometimes memory plays tricks).

PlayStation 4 Trophies

Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled brings 4 Bronze Trophies, 35 Silver Trophies, 10 Gold Trophies and the coveted Platinum Trophy with it to PlayStation 2. The speed with which you unlock them all will depend a lot on two factors: your skill with racing games (especially arcade games), and if you have played without the original chapters of the series on the first PlayStation 1. In this case you will already know some tricks, secret paths and collectible locations. In general, however, the challenge is not prohibitive.

Mind-boggling content

These considerations obviously do not detract from the value of Crash Team: Racing Nitro-Fueled as a game in itself, but they focus on very specific and partial aspects. We did not encounter any particular problems in the technical or graphic or artistic realization of the title, for example: everything flows beautifully, everything has been redone from scratch with great detail. For the record, we inform you that the game runs at 30FPS on all platforms but still remains fluid and free of slowdowns. Some small flaws can be found, however, and this applies to any video game: but is it really worth going to point out tiny imperfections in the stone tiles of the Piramide Papu track? Or do we have to look for the defects in some light effects of the Pista Cloaca, damn those who invented its narrow and asphyxiated ducts? If anything, something seems to have changed precisely in terms of gameplay, in the responsiveness of the kart during drifting and wall jumps. But even here a couple of hours of gameplay are enough, and you will return to being skilled pilots and ready for anything. Probably.

La online mode we couldn't try it, because clearly matchmaking left our poor Bandicoot waiting for too many minutes, so much so that he ended up falling asleep. However, nothing suggests particular problems, if anything we will come back to notify you as soon as it is available in the next few days. From the point of view of content proposed, however, it is not possible to complain from any point of view. There is no such thing as "okay, the original game has been redone, but some more content wouldn't have hurt". They don't exist because in Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled there is everything and more. Think of an object, an element, a kart or a character: there is. We challenge you to check. Seven different cups to compete in, online or offline. 32 tracks, all different, and probably many of them will make your eye tear down, recalling precious memories of when you were younger.

There is no shortage of additional modes, with related tracks or arenas: Battle, in which two players on two karts fight each other with upgrades to the death; Time Trial to perfect your times on various tracks, Relic Races, CTR Challenges and Crystal Challenges, with special items to collect along the way before time runs out, or other conditions that are mostly infamous. And again, Pit Stop which acts as a daily shop, where you can spend the accumulated wumpa fruits to unlock characters, decorations, aesthetic variants of the kart, new vehicles and much more. Lots of characters to choose from, many with additional skins and styles, as well as new pilots coming and some new content debuting with Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled for the first time ever. For example some characters with a neon / futuristic uniform. They didn't drive us crazy in terms of design, but the more content the better. And then the retro variants of Crash, Coco and Cortex are a love, that must be said.

Comment

Tested version PlayStation 4 Digital Delivery PlayStation Store, Xbox Store, Nintendo eShop Price 39,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

8.2

Readers (149)

8.2

Your vote

Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled is a truly remarkable product, both for nostalgic gamers and newcomers, perhaps even people who have never even seen a video of the Crash Bandicoot racing game. The nostalgia effect is predominant, but Activision's immense restoration work does not stop there, neither in its premises nor in its actual realization. The game proposes in high definition, super-updated graphics and renewed technical sector all the contents of the main racing games of the series linked to Crash Bandicoot, therefore Crash Team Racing, Crash Nitro Kart and Crash Tag Team Racing. In terms of gameplay, an attempt was made to readjust the controls of the first chapter of the series as faithfully as possible: something has changed in the response of the kart, especially during drifting, perhaps also in the speed of activation of the turbo, but nothing too traumatic. You can choose any track you want at any time, and play it with any friend you want, online or offline. There are over thirty tracks, and an immense amount of unlockables and pilots, all of whom also possess alternative styles. What else do you want for the price offered by Activision, as honest as that of any other remake proposed in recent years? Go buy Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled: but when you go out drive carefully, at least in real life!