Vivendi to release Crash Team Racing follow-up

Vivendi Universal Games has announced a new game in the Crash Bandicoot line. Crash Nitro Kart is a mascot-driven kart-racing game that looks to follow in the footsteps of the classic PlayStation kart-racing game Crash Team Racing. The game is being developed by Vicarious Visions, and it is scheduled to hit the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube during the last quarter of 2003.

The storyline has Crash getting kidnapped by the evil emperor, Velo, who forces the bandicoot to race in his coliseum--with the fate of Earth hanging in the balance, of course. The game will feature more than 17 tracks spanning four different worlds: a jungle, a volcano, a futuristic city, and a space station. The game will have a single-player adventure mode and a system-link multiplayer option that will support up to eight players. No word yet on if the system-link option will extend to all three platforms.

We'll have more on Crash Nitro Kart as it becomes available.