[PS2] Crash Nitro Kart ROM Download

Crash Nitro Kart ROM Description

Story

Starting things off we have the story and yes this game does in fact have a story. It all begins with Crash and his friends just relaxing and Cortex and his minions plotting before all of them suddenly get abducted. Coming to they find that they have been abducted by these green looking aliens, their leader Emperor Velo the 27th demands that the Earthlings he had captured participate in a racing tournament to entertain his citizens. If they win they will leave Earth alone, if they lose however then Earth will be destroyed. And really that’s about it.

Sure there are a few moments for you to see other racers from other participating planets that are a little entertaining as you do get a good idea of each racer’s personality. But aside from a quick and decent ending that’s really it. Honestly I don’t mind this as it’s a racing game so I don’t really think it needs a story to begin with. With the story that we got however it’s fine and it sets up why everyone is racing rather well though I will admit it’s also a rather lazy story at the same time.

Here’s what we’re going to talk a little bit about Crash Team Racing because it pretty much has the same story but with a different villain. My verdict on that game’s story is the same for Crash Nitro Kart’s – it’s fine and works rather well though I can see someone playing Crash Nitro Kart after playing Crash Team Racing and feeling that things are a bit repetitive in the story. Is it a huge problem? No, not really. I just can’t help but to notice the immense similarities between the two stories.

Gameplay

Now why don’t we get into that gameplay. Okay so before we get way too far into this let me just say why I want to talk about Crash Team Racing a little bit as well in this review. Well it’s because they both are very similar in gameplay and gaming options so it holds relevance here to me. But why don’t we just get my opinions out of the way about Crash Team Racing since it’s not the main event here.

Let me quickly say that CTR is one my favorite kart racing games for the PlayStation. It’s colorful, it has fun tracks, decent controls, and it’s overall a really fun game that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys kart racing games.

So what about Crash Nitro Kart? Well there are two main modes to the game – those being adventure and free race. Options that are both single-player and multiplayer. Let’s begin with adventure mode where you can choose to play as Crash’s side or Cortex’s side. In this mode you will play through the game’s story in which you will be dropped into small hub worlds. From these hub worlds that you can drive to portals that represent different tracks that you will have to race in.

After winning each race you then get to take on the boss racer. Who after you beat you will then be able to go on to the next hub world. I actually kind of like this setup. To me the small hub worlds are fun to drive around in and I quite like the boss fight races. In these races you’re only going against the boss as they throw a bunch of hazards your way that you need to dodge and to get ahead of. To me they’re just plain fun.

After you’ve gotten first place in a race you go back to that portal and replay the races in different kinds of challenges like collecting the CNK tokens. Personally I avoided these as I’m not a huge fan of going out of my way for a token while still trying to get first place. But hey if you’re looking for something to challenge your skills then they are at least there. Unfortunately you need to do these challenges in order to unlock gem cups and it’s in these gem cups where you can unlock new characters.

Well you can also unlock a couple characters by drifting with a fifty drift combo but that’s also kind of annoying. Both of these methods suck to me when it comes to racing games. Characters should be unlockable in a more simplified manner like collecting coins in Mario Kart. So no I haven’t unlocked these characters because that much effort to me really isn’t worth it.

CTR to me is much better in this area. Well yeah you do have to go through a bunch of hoops to unlock characters, there’s also a cheat code you can use to unlock them all. You can’t do that in CNK. Well a cheat code really isn’t the better option, at least I can still play as different characters in a more simplified manner. I still think that unlocking characters or karts needs to be done in a much better method.

Okay let’s talk about the other racing modes you can do in the single-player or multiplayer. First of course you can race on any of the tracks you want in any order you want. There are also cups you can race in but these aren’t the cups that will unlock your characters. Next we have time trials where you can try to finish a track in as fast as the time as you can. If you do manage to get a good enough time on these tracks you can unlock a new character.

Then finally we have battle mode where you will drive around in these arenas picking up items to use against everyone else and try to get the most points. Of these options I usually play free racing and battle mode the most as I enjoy both of these modes. Since racing is the focus of the game I guess we should finally talk about it.

Racing

For the most part it’s pretty standard for racing games as you drive around on these rather well designed tracks trying to get first place. There are two different kind of crates you can drive into on the tracks – crates that will give you one wumpa fruit and crates that’ll give you items to use like rockets and bubbles. By collecting ten wumpa fruit you get a powered up version of items you get from the item crates. Honestly I think that’s a cool mechanic. It makes it worthwhile going for the wumpa fruit which are sometimes placed in hard-to-reach locations. Unless you’re skilled enough to get them, which rewards you with better items.

Another and unfortunately small part of the races is in certain tracks you can find gravity modes. Yes much like in Mario Kart 8 there are moments where you’ll be driving up walls and it’s honestly really great. For example there is a track where you will drive up and around a clock and another where you can drive along the wall to avoid a train. These moments are honestly really great and help make these tracks stand out more. I just wish more tracks had them.

What I also like about these gravity sections is that they also help change the layout of tracks, making them so much more interesting and complex in ways that haven’t been done before in kart racing games. At least Mario Kart 8 did do more with the idea because it’s honestly one of the best ideas to come out of this game.

Lastly let’s talk about drifting. Yes drifting is in other racing games but the way it’s used here is quite unique. While drifting you can use a speed boost which will combo up your drifts. By simply drifting you can get three speed boosts in a row but combos can be built by boosting off of ramps, running into boost tracks, and sometimes running into gravity sections. So as long as you know a track well enough you can really rack up those boosts giving the race quite the momentum.

It also doesn’t hurt that drifting in and of itself really feels good and it’s very responsive. I would have to say that the drifting in this game is actually much better than the drifting in Crash Team Racing. If there’s one issue I have with the multiplayer it’s that if you have more than two players playing then you will start to lose more computer racers. So if you’re playing with four other friends you will only be competing against each other as there will be no computer players around.

I don’t know why this is, maybe there’s some type of limitation within the game itself but it kind of does bug me.

Visuals and Audio

The game looks pretty alright. Character models aren’t amazing but they work well enough. Most of the tracks I would say look pretty good and have something that makes them stand out visually. There is a track with a large clock section, one that has an underwater pipe, a nice jungle temple location, and an interesting mix of snow and machinery in another. However I find that most of the tracks have some slightly dull and muted colors to them which is a shame since I really like how vibrant and lively the colors are in CTR.

There are some small details added to the game that I do like in terms of its visuals, like how the Aku Aku mask works as an invincibility item for hero characters. Well for villainous characters like Cortex it’s Uka Uka instead – a simple but nice little touch. I will say that I really like the new boss racers and how they look as they each have something unique about them that makes them stand out rather well. Though the game does suffer from some rather long loading screens which can make things feel very slow when you’re just racing for fun.

One of the big things about the game during the development were the cutscenes which honestly did turn out pretty good. They are easy to watch and have some good animations to them. Then we have the music which is much like that of Crash Wrath of Cortex. It’s not at all bad music and definitely feels like Crash music. I will say that there are some better themes here and a few tracks actually do stand out but the soundtrack really isn’t anything amazing.