Here’s 15 minutes of Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled

Polar for life

For my very first day at PAX East I was able to get some hands-on time with Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. As one of the few believers that CTR is a better game than Mario Kart 64, I’ve been insanely excited to get my hands on Nitro-Fueled since its announcement, and it feels as great as I remember.   

The dual trigger drifting system takes some getting used to and provides a bit more of a challenge than your typical kart racer. Holding down either trigger button will start your drift, but if you want to get that satisfying boost, you’ll need to time a press of the opposite trigger when your tailpipe smoke turns black. This boost can be stacked up to three times per drift. 

I was able to race across four of the 31 tracks that will be included at launch from both the original CTR and Crash Nitro Kart: developer Beenox confirmed that while the CTR courses remain mostly unchanged (save for a bit more activity in the background like the newly added alligator in Sewer Speedway), the Nitro Kart courses required more fine-tuning to make them work within the CTR framework. In some cases, that even meant going as far as changing the width and length of certain sections of the tracks. 

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is due out on June 21, 2019, on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Switch.