Crash Nitro Kart Hands-On Impressions

During a recent visit to the PlayStation Experience event in London, we had our first opportunity to check out a playable version of Crash Nitro Kart. The game is the sequel to the PlayStation game Crash Team Racing, and it features a number of characters best known for appearing in the Crash Bandicoot platform games.

The game follows the standard kart-racing formula, with colorful circuits, booster pads, puddles of oil to slow you down, and, most importantly, crates containing power-ups and weapons. The circuit we raced on had an industrial feel, and at one point our kart's wheels flipped up underneath the chassis so that they acted as magnets when we landed on top of a large pipe. When racing on the pipe, we were able to move around its surface in the same way that craft in Nintendo's F-Zero games are able to--the potential gain being that booster pads were located toward the pipe's underside.

The version of the game on display was a little unstable, unfortunately, and in addition to occasional crashes, the two-player split-screen version of the game suffered from noticeable drops in the frame rate. For more information on Crash Nitro Kart, which is currently scheduled for release toward the end of this year, check out our previous coverage of the game.