The bandicoot is back on the track in Crash Tag Team Racing from Radical Entertainment and VU Games. This game marks Crash's third racing game, and if you played Crash Team Racing and Crash Nitro Cart then you'll recall that the bandicoot and his buddies have a pretty solid track record when it comes to racing games. We recently got our hands on a preview copy of the PlayStation 2 version of Crash Tag Team Racing, and it looks like the game will introduce some interesting new concepts to the combat racing genre.

Crash and friends are back for some crazy combat racing.

The game begins with a rendered cutscene in which we meet a new character, Ebeneezer Von Clutch. The "deranged genius cyborg" runs the Motorworld theme park, which is a collection of amusement attractions built around themed tracks and arenas where drivers compete in the chaotic sport of combat racing. It seems as though Von Clutch has lost all his power crystals, and he needs some skilled racers to help him win the crystals back. The cyborg is willing to put his ownership of the park on the line to get his crystals back, but he won't give up the park without a fight. Conveniently, Crash, Coco, Crunch, Dr. Neo Cortex, N-Gin, and Nina Cortex show up to stake a claim on the theme park. Von Clutch joins them in the races, as does a new character, a sassy Southerner named Pasadena Possum.

After the brief introduction you're set free to roam about Motorworld theme park, which basically acts as a hub that connects the five themed worlds you can race in. You can chat with park guests, partake in minigames, collect coins, and get Crash killed in all sorts of silly ways. When you're ready to race you can make your way to one of the worlds. In the beginning, however, the only world available is Mystery Island, which is a water-themed area with ships, waterfalls, sharks, and the like. Each theme world is like another hub that connects a number of race tracks, stunt tracks, and battle arenas, all of course designed according to the world theme. There's a lot to do in each world when you aren't racing. You can talk to park workers, collect coins, purchase crystals, buy outfits for characters, play minigames, or collect special items that can be used to unlock new cars. Once you've gathered enough crystals, you can spend them to get a special gem. Once you get a gem, you can unlock a different world. In addition to Mystery Island, there's Happily Ever Faster, Tyrannosaurus Wrecks, Tomb Town, and Astro Land. It didn't take us long at all to unlock the first four worlds, since the power crystals are pretty easy to come by early in the game. In case you don't feel like running around a big 3D environment to get to the races, you can spend some coins to activate a ticket machine, which will instantly take you to any race you've unlocked.

After you've explored the park you can make your way to one of the worlds, and then to one of the tracks within that world to participate in a variety of racing events. There are five events available on the regular race tracks: crashinator, race, rolling thunder, fast lap, and run and gun. Crashinator is a single-person event where you simply race a single lap around a track and hit targets. Rolling thunder is a single lap wherein you are the gunner and have to score as many KOs as possible before crossing the finish line. Fast lap is simply a timed lap in one of the regular cars. Run and gun once again puts you in the role of gunner, and you have to shoot down targets as you drive by them. Finally, race is a straight up race, and this is the only type of event where you can use the clash feature at will.

When you aren't racing you can partake in a bit of platform-jumping, coin collecting, skeet shooting, or bowling.

The clash feature is a new concept that lets two race cars combine during a race with the touch of a button. This results in a bigger car with one racer driving and the other manning a turret gun on top of the car. When playing single-player, the artificial intelligence controls whichever part of the vehicle that you aren't manning. If you'd rather drive then you just have to hope the AI has good aim. If you play as the gunner, the game basically turns into a rail shooter, since you don't have any control over where you're going. You can switch between gunner and driver at any time with a quick press of a button. If your partner isn't performing to your standards, you can hit the clash button at any time to separate yourself. Whoever quits the clash ends up in front, where you or your opponent can take the lead and win the race, or get blown to smithereens by the racers that are behind you. You also have to be careful where you choose to separate from your partner. At one point, we tried to separate in the middle of a hard left turn, which sent us flying into the wall and cost us the lead in the race. At this stage in the game it seems like it's quite difficult to do well in a race without clashing, since the regular cars and power-ups are much less powerful than the clash cars. We didn't notice a performance difference when trying to clash with different combinations of cars, so it looks like who you clash with will largely depend on who's nearby. It will also depend on your weapon preference, since each character has a different special weapon.