Nitro Kart Crashes into Nitro-Fueled

How's about some Crash Nitro Kart (CNK) with your Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled? Not only content with giving us the CNK karts, developer Beenox has given us what many fans were asking for - CNK tracks.

Polygon Surprise!

Crash, you've uh, got some polygons on your face

During PlayStation's State of Play event, a new trailer sped off the tarmac showing off all kinds of new shinies from Nitro-Fueled. The first of which are exclusive PlayStation low-polygon skins for Crash, Coco and Cortex. A lot of fans asked for a low-poly version of Crash for Vicarious Visions's Crash Bandicoot: N.Sane Trilogy of yesteryear, probably as a homage to classic Crash and because various other remakes had similar ideas (Tomb Raider, Resident Evil 2 and Spyro all did the same). However, the N.Sane Trilogy never gained this, so it's a nice surprise to see this oft-requested skin in Nitro-Fueled for three of the most well recognised characters. Personally, I'm not too sure on their designs. They're more like low-poly versions of their current looks rather than the actual low-poly designs of the original CTR, but hey ho, beggers can't be choosers.

CNK's Fenomanal Display

The second surprise is, of course, the inclusion of CNK tracks.

Shown off in the trailer are planet Barin's Deep Sea Driving, planet Fenomena's Clockwork Wumpa and planet Teknee's Electron Avenue. All three tracks have been amazingly reimagined with alien aesthetics that propel them to new delights. For example, Electron Avenue has now been reimagined as an '80s cyberpunk track, complete with holographic palm trees and glowing pizza signs. Actually, the whole track feels like it's riffing on Neon Drive, Sunset Racing, or other racers on the same... track. That's not a bad thing at all, giving us visual delights galore at every turn of the cityscape.

A nice touch is how characters actually react to their surroundings in-game.

Clockwork Wumpa has been suped up too, although not much has been altered from the main aesthetic it had before. To be fair, though, Clockwork Wumpa was one of the best tracks in CNK, but it's nice to see the flakes of snow fall, wumpa fruit scattered around the clock tower's interior and some excellent mood lighting bringing it all together.

Whilst Deep Sea Driving and the battle arena Desert Storm where also shown off, they were brief. The most notable thing in both of those levels, however, were the feeling that you were driving on an alien planet, rather than somewhere on Earth. Desert Storm featured floating vines in the distances whereas Deep Sea Driving had an open-mouthed beast where two boost strips originally sat. I'm loving these additions, making the CNK tracks even more unique than before (and I love CNK's tracks). I'm particularly looking forard to seeing how Out of Time and Andriod Alley will look, given that they're my two favourites of the game.

Crash DeLarge races against time in Clockwork Wumpa

No Have Anti-grav

Of course, it all comes at a cost. By that, Beenox have confirmed the removal of the anti-gravity mechanic that the original CNK boasted. I must admit, when I think of CNK, I think of this mechanic. So successful was it, in fact, that the Mario Kart series has since adopted it (and CNK's boss bikes, thinking about it). So it's weird to think they have been removed. According to creative director, Thomas Wilson, the anti-grav features were removed to shorten the track designs a bit, with new visual decisions based on making the tracks feel more unique. That's fair, then, as CNK's tracks always felt like they were copying CTR's aesthetics in multiple ways; Assembly Lane riffed on Tiny Arena and N.Gin labs, Out of Time on Dingo Canyon, Inferno Island on Crash Cove and so on. The removal of anti-grav mechanics does make me wonder how tracks like Thunder Struck will handle, though, and if you'd be able to drive across a clock face in Out of Time.

Get used to no anti-grav mechanics for Deep Sea Driving's underwater tube.

As you've probably guessed by now, these won't be the only CNK tracks. It's been confirmed that they're all returning for Nitro-Fueled, as are the characters. That means you can race as N.Trance or Crunch across Sewer Speedway, or Pinstripe across Electron Avenue to your heart's content. So that means you get to race on CNK tracks with the mechanics of CTR. It's the best of both worlds!

If the CNK tracks are to feature in the adventure mode, however, one does have to wonder how they'll be included. Will there be an entirely new adventure mode for CNK, complete with story? Will it be an extra mode available after completing the story mode for CTR? After all, CNK is CTR's sequel, complete with Oxide returning after mouthing off to Velo (probably). Food for thought.

Some CTR Tracks, Too!

The State of Play trailer appeared at Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) East, complete with playable demos. These showed off CTR tracks Sewer Speedway and Papu's Pyramid in all their glory, in addition to CNK's Clockwork Wumpa and Electron Avenue, as shown by our good friend CrystalFissure on is YouTube channel. Trust me on this - he's about the only one out there who can not only play these tracks, but show them off (a lot of journalists seem to be playing the game like Mario Kart 8 with its drifiting, leading to some, uh, embarrasing falls):

Both Papu's Pyramid and Sewer Speedway are fan favourites, with the former being my personal go-to whenever I play CTR. I'm looking forward to racing (and losing) on those tracks once Nitro-Fueled bursts across the finish line on 21st June 2019. Until then, I'm going to play some CTR and CNK, making sure I work out any cobwebs in my skills, shouting...

WAHOOOWEEEEEEE!

Possibly the cleanest sewers in existence.