CTR packs some great fun with numerous game modes to play through and some classic kart racing multiplayer fun!
CTR looked beautiful with it's very colorful and vivid looking visuals while the environments were well designed and their cartoony they had, blended well with the characters. The soundtrack in CTR sounds very similar to previous Crash games and still is as good and catchy. If you play the game and enjoy it, I'm sure you'll remember some of the tunes in the game.
I had no problems what so ever controlling the game, everything how it was supposed to be. The game looks great and feels great. The controls weren't clunky at all and played flawlessly.
The story consists of Crash and the rest of the characters competing in a go-kart race competition but Nitrous Oxide claims that he is coming to Earth to challenge the character that beats the rest of the other characters. If the character you choose wins against Oxide, Oxide will go back home and leave Crash and the others alone. If Oxide wins, he will turn every person into his slave. To actually play against Oxide, you have to beat a number of boss fights and gain trophies, keys, gems and CTR Tokens. The story is quite mediocre but it's fun to go through and collect all the trophies and collectibles.
The game features numerous game modes, one of them being Adventure mode. This is the story mode which allows you to choose a character with different attributes consisting speed, acceleration and turning skill. After choosing your character, you will be greeted by Aku Aku or Uka Uka depending if you choose an evil or a good character to start with. He will then guide you through the game and gives you a tutorial at the beginning of the game. You start at the N.Sanity Beach where a number of warps are scattered through the beach. You go into one of the warps taking you into a race, unlocking trophies which unlock other warps. After 4 races you race 1v1 against a boss enemy and try to dodge a number of obstacles constantly throughout the race while trying to win the 1st place. Getting all the gems, trophies, relics and tokens will grant you new characters to choose from and even some extra tracks. There is one character called 'Penta Penguin' who is the fastest racer that can be unlocked only via cheats.
The Arcade mode is the basically just a race either 1/2 players playing against the A.I. The character selection screen consists of 8 characters and more to be unlocked if you acquire all the collectibles throughout the game. One thing I didn't like in the game is that the characters that you play against are always the remaining characters from the character screen so you could never play against the unlockable ones in a normal race. A feature that Crash Nitro Kart has, which I liked myself. The game has 3 difficulty settings which are pretty standard : Easy, Medium and Hard. What I would have liked is either another level of difficulty or making the difficulties harder because I thought that even on the hardest mode on the games, I could easily beat the majority of races.
Something I really love on CTR is the amount of tracks they put in the game. I love how each track is represented by a character; so let's say Tiny has his own track called Tiny Arena. Tiny is very bad at turning but he has really high speeds so his track is suited for him mostly because it doesn't have many sharp turns and consists of many jumping and high speeds. There are over 17 tracks to choose from, all detailed and have different characteristics. The tracks differ from snow to canyons to a sewer. The races can be played either 3,5 or 7 laps and the race consists of ramps, a number of obstacles, '?' weapon crates give you different weapons like missiles or bombs to attack other racers and weapons to defend yourself Aku Aku/ Uka Uka which is the most powerful weapon as it defends you and attacks your enemies, giving you invulnerability. There are also boxes filled with apples that give you a speed increase and also improve your weapons. One can also play cups 1/2 players consisting of a Wumpa Cup, Crystal Cup, Nitro Cup and Crash Cup. These are basically different cups, each having 4 different tracks consisting of a point system where the character with most points wins the cup and wins the Gold trophy gaining the first place on the podium.
The time trial mode is also a very nice addition to the game where you play against various ghosts and try to beat the best time and eventually you will be challenged by the ghost of Nitrous Oxide and this will unlock you a Scrapbook which is a very nice slideshow of some concept art.
The real fun in racing games is when you play multiplayer either with the VS mode or the Battle Mode. The arcade multiplayer consists of only 2 player and against the AI. The VS mode is the same as the arcade mode but you either play a one vs one match in a single race or against 4 players in a cup. The real fun comes when you play the battle, I'm sure a lot of friendships were broken while playing it. The battle mode is a split screen game where you choose 2-4 players in a match, choosing teams or a free for all. You can even choose time options and the number of points you need in order to win the game. The weapon crates are also customizable. This consists of the '?' weapon crates scattered, which the players have to collect in order to defend themselves or attack the enemies. The game's default way of winning is by gaining 5 points, in order to do so, you must hit an enemy and gaining a point while defending yourself. There are about 5 tracks to choose from and they all have different characteristics. Multiplayer is one of the best selling points as it is the most fun I had while playing the game.
CTR is a decent game that plays great, looks colourful and blends in perfectly with the game. It offers a variety of game modes, a generous amount of tracks which are fairly large and detailed. A mediocre story mode with some unlockables making the game much more fun. Multiplayer is the main attraction and I'm sure you will enjoy it with some friends.