Crash Tag Team Racing - PS2

Ah the nostalgia. Remember the heady days of the last generation, and the old arguments about the relative merits of the two machines? Plucky PlayStation fanboys, when confronted with an N64 owner bragging about his 64 bits and Goldeneye enablement, would generally point to more colours, and more, cheaper games on their flimsy grey console. Article D in the debate was very often Crash Team Racing, Naughty Dog’s take on the famous Mario Kart, and arguably finer than the N64 version of the Nintendo racer.

It’s surely about time that some effort was made to defend that claim, and Naughty dog are doing so in style, releasing two combat racers in one week. Jak X sees their other well known heroes Jak and Daxter take to the track, and Crash and his goofy chums return in Crash Tag Team Racing.

In fact, the development work has been outsourced to developer Radical Entertainment, who’ve worked on karting games before, in the guise of the rather fun Simpson’s Hit and Run published by EA games. The storyline sees the wicked Doctor Cortex hatch a new plan to dispose of the boisterous bandicoot. He aims to lure him to a disused racetrack and challenge him to a sportsmanlike race. But his real intention is to bury our red-furred hero – the racetrack in question is condemned to be destroyed!

The game’s gimmick is what they call ‘clashing’. Mid race you simply clash your car with an opponent’s to form a super car, composed of driver and gunner. You can choose either role, staying behind the wheel or picking off rivals with a 360 degree rotating gun turret. Crash has been a little slack this generation and it’s good to see the destructive speed freak is still finding work.
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