Nitro Fueled is, at least to me, the single best kart racer of all time. The original CTR was already a pretty special game, all due to its very unique mix of racing and platforming and the sheer mechanical depth it has; all while delivering on being a celebration of Crash. This made me very worried when its remake got announced, and especially when it was revealed that Beenox, an Activision studio which had done nothing remarkable before, would be the main developers of the game.
Those worries quickly faded as soon as I started my first lap in Crash Cove and immediately realized that not only had they managed to replicate Crash Team Racing - they'd made it better.
From a content standpoint, the improvements are obvious. The 18 character roster from the original game was expanded to a massive 56 playable characters, putting back into the spotlight completely obscure characters nobody expected to ever see again. Tracks is a similar story, as the game has every CTR track remade, plus all the Crash Nitro Kart tracks remade, plus 8 original tracks that were delivered with updates.
In terms of mechanics, they have also been expanded. The core of CTR is still there in a more polished form, while adding to them by turning some lesser known techniques from the original game into more explicit game mechanics. There's also the character and kart customization, alongside being able to choose any playstyle for any character so that all of them were competitively viable.
The only real shame about this game is that it's looking like it'll forever be stuck to 30FPS, as it never received a PC port. It's a rock-solid 30FPS with very good motion blur to mask it, but it's undeniable a higher framerate would've made the experience even better.
Those worries quickly faded as soon as I started my first lap in Crash Cove and immediately realized that not only had they managed to replicate Crash Team Racing - they'd made it better.
From a content standpoint, the improvements are obvious. The 18 character roster from the original game was expanded to a massive 56 playable characters, putting back into the spotlight completely obscure characters nobody expected to ever see again. Tracks is a similar story, as the game has every CTR track remade, plus all the Crash Nitro Kart tracks remade, plus 8 original tracks that were delivered with updates.
In terms of mechanics, they have also been expanded. The core of CTR is still there in a more polished form, while adding to them by turning some lesser known techniques from the original game into more explicit game mechanics. There's also the character and kart customization, alongside being able to choose any playstyle for any character so that all of them were competitively viable.
The only real shame about this game is that it's looking like it'll forever be stuck to 30FPS, as it never received a PC port. It's a rock-solid 30FPS with very good motion blur to mask it, but it's undeniable a higher framerate would've made the experience even better.