An Underrated Mario Kart Like Game for Playstation: CTR.

[Dragoncat]

Thought that title would catch your attention. CTR stands for Crash Team Racing. Anyone else love it? I actually play it and not Mario Kart, my brother has Mario Kart for DS but we like CTR better. It's the only Crash Bandicoot game I have. It, along with Spyro, is my childhood. It has a story mode! I don't think Mario Kart does. In its story mode, you have to win races in order to earn the right to face the evil alien N Oxide, who wants to turn the planet into a concrete parking lot and make everyone his slaves. Not the strongest plot out there, but it works. It also has a battle mode where you can dart around different arenas and use weapons against the other players and try to win. My brother and me love battle mode. We don't have a multi tap, we can't do 3 or 4 player, but we have enough fun with just ourselves.

So, yeah. Who else loves this awesome game? Who do you usually play as, what's your favorite track etc. I like playing as Pura, my brother likes Polar, but we will use other characters on occasion. I don't really have a favorite track, but Cortex Castle stands out to me as having a really good design.

 

[Mercedes]

I loved Crash Team Racing! There was a few Mario Kart rip-offs back then, but all the rip-offs were awesome! Diddy Kong Racing, Crash Team Racing! I used to play as the little polar bear and go around to my friend's house every Friday and sleep-over and we'd play this and Croc! Good times.

 

[JuicieJ]

It's a pretty cool game, one that definitely rivaled Mario Kart 64 back in the day. Though it doesn't hold a candle to MK7, and certainly won't to MK8.

 

[tketle]

I have extremely vague memories of playing that game at my babysitter's when I was six or so. It was pretty awesome.

 

[Justac00lguy]

This game was awesome and quite possibly, no definitely, my favourite karting-like game. It maybe did try to emulate the success of MK, but that's just what happens in the gaming industry and in my honest opinion, I think they did it better than Nintendo.

I can't quite remember much, but it felt slightly like a typical plarformer. Now hear my out, I'm not saying what you think I'm saying, I'm more so referring to the central hub. The idea of having a central hub in racing game was quite cool in my eyes and just gave it that little something extra. Please correct me if I'm wrong as my memory is pretty hazy when it comes to the little details in this game.

sleep-over and we'd play this and Croc! Good times.

Sounds like a pretty good time.

 

[Dragoncat]

I remember Croc. I had both Crocs, but they were too hard for me. If I still had them I doubt that would still be the case.

And yeah, the hub thing was nice.

 

[HeroofScotland]

Never played CTR even though I played the original trilogy.
To satisfy my racing needs on the PS1, I had Walt Disney World Quest Magical Racing Tour (what a mouthful).

 

[Dragoncat]

To satisfy my racing needs on the PS1, I had Walt Disney World Quest Magical Racing Tour (what a mouthful).

I've never even heard of that.

 

[Big Octo]

Underrated? How disrespectful to CTR. But yeah, great game. Fun time, blah blah blah go play it.

 

[HeroofScotland]

I've never even heard of that.

Not surprised, I stole my copy from a friend just because I needed something new to play on my PSX. It's a kart racer based on Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, okay at best.

 

[Dragoncat]

Underrated? How disrespectful to CTR. But yeah, great game. Fun time, blah blah blah go play it.

I said underrated, not overrated....because it's not as popular as Mario Kart, but should be.

 

[Dan]

Yeah it's certainly not as known as it should be, it's also my favorite kart racer still as of this day. I see crash team racing as leagues ahead of its counter-part Mario kart.
The driving was a lot faster and enjoyable, the courses were more dynamic ,exciting and detailed, although the game running on superior hardware may have a little to do with this. I love all the race courses, my favorites being. Hot air speedway, Sewer Speedway, and Polar pass, although the sea lions can go **** themselves, honorable mention to Papu's pyramid too.

The game also featured a story, although it's nothing spectacular it still grabbed you and made the game more interactive than any Mario kart. In the story mode there were Boss racers as well, which were always fun, you'd pretty much have the boss at the start of every race talk down on you, and how much your racing skills sucked, of course they don't tell you that they are going to cheat by using an unlimited amount of TNT and rolling bombs. I loved the purple gem cup which had you race all 4 bosses at once, although they don't cheat in these races.

There was a lot more to keep you coming back in crash team racing compared to other kart racers at the time, you had the normal time trials but also, the adventure mode to complete, and to get 100% you had to get all the collectibles like the CTR tokens and relics, relic racers were like time trials except you had to beat the track in a certain amount of time, you could hit boxes to stop the timer.
Time trial also got a unique spin, if you managed to complete a trial in a certain amount of time you would get the chance to race N tropy's ghost, and if you beat that you would go onto oxides ghost, I never could beat all of oxides ghosts however.
I still think a lot of kart racers could learn from crash team racing, it had a lot going for it and I recommend you play it if you're into kart racing.

Oh and it's sequel crash nitro kart did gravity racing way before Mario Kart 8.
Although I enjoyed that game as a kid, going back to nitro kart felt off, maybe I wasn't used to it's physics...

 

[Salem]

I remember playing it, but I don't remember much of it.

 

[Krazy4Krash]

Crash Team Racing is the absolute sexiest retro kart racer to exist. I say retro because the only games I find comparable is the most recent of Mario Kart titles. Crash Nitro Kart was a respectable sequel, but I can't look further than CTR for enjoyment.

I used to always play as Pura and Polar, and actually achieved all Platinum relics with the latter character. I have come to choose Crash almost equally as much in recent years, plus a little Dingodile on the side. Polar Pass was always a mighty fine track in my eyes, and Sewer Speedway never fails to be bucketloads of fun. Its shortcut is the best there is, but only if you can succeed every time like me.

 

[Heroine of Winds]

CTR's a great game. It's probably one of the best Mario Kart clones along with Diddy Kong Racing & the All-Stars Racing series. Crash Nitro Kart's good, but it doesn't quite hold a candle to CTR.

I remember Croc. I had both Crocs, but they were too hard for me.

Croc 2 was a lot harder than the first game, imo. Couldn't even get past the first level. @___@