Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled

[Karo]

I feel like I'd mostly likely go for PC due to the convenience of not having to pay for online. But I kinda suspect most of my friends are going for console versions. :thinking:

@Everyone: Come to the PC side it is your destiny! We can play online without any fees!

[Moonface]

Eh, the fees would only bother me if I wasn't going to use a PSN subscription for any other games.

Also, Nitros Oxide was finally revealed a few days ago!

[Moonface]

PS4 Exclusive Content and CNK Tracks Revealed for Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
During today's State of Play broadcast, it was announced that Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled will be getting exclusive content for PlayStation 4, consisting of retro skins for Crash, Coco, and Cortex, retro karts, and a retro track.

And if you thought we'd only be getting Crash Team Racing content, think again, as tracks from Crash Nitro Kart such as Clockwork Wumpa, Electron Avenue, and Deep Sea Driving. No anti-gravity sections were shown, which may mean the tracks have been modified to fit better into Crash Team Racing. Karts and battle arenas from CNK are also going to be included.

[Mr EliteL]

It is totally sweet Nitro Kart (or parts of it rather) is getting included in this remake.

Also, is this the first time we saw Papu Papu? If not then, it's the first time I've noticed him.

[Moonface]

Also, is this the first time we saw Papu Papu? If not then, it's the first time I've noticed him.

It's the first time we've seen both him and Pinstripe. However, Pinstripe doesn't get a highlight scene and instead can be seen during the gameplay segments, most notably the battle arena parts.

[Mr EliteL]

Oh dang, didn't notice Pinstripe. I assumed the characters featured there were ones we already knew of and didn't bother checking each player box individually.

So, Moony did you get to play some Nitro-Fueled at PAX? 

[Moonface]

So, Moony did you get to play some Nitro-Fueled at PAX? 

Yes. First impressions of it are mixed, but I'm going to try and get some more time with it tomorrow to determine if it was me or the game at fault.

[Mr EliteL]

Oh? What kind of things felt out of place or made you feel mixed, and was it better Saturday if you got the chance?

[Moonface]

PAX East 2019 - Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled Hands-On Impressions
This past weekend I was fortunate enough to get to attend PAX East with ShiraNoMai and spend some time with Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. I managed to get two sessions with the game, and here are my impressions from what I got to experience, as well as off-screen footage of my gameplay.

I played the same two tracks for each of my sessions, Sewer Speedway and Electron Avenue, however there were two other tracks available, Papu's Pyramid and Clockwork Wumpa, which Shira got to try out in her session. For my first session, things didn't feel right. Using both Pura and Crash, I struggled to get the handling and drift responses that I expected the game to be giving me. Drifting wasn't kicking in when I thought it should, and some turns were harder than they should have been, especially with Pura who has maxed out handling. Another issue that I quickly noticed was that another player using Tiny was getting ahead of the entire pack by over 30 seconds, despite how hard I tried to catch up to them and seeing at least three warp orbs being sent out to target them by other players.

My first session left me feeling a little sour on how the game was turning out. The tracks looked amazing, but I wasn't getting the gameplay experience I expected to get. Therefore, I booked another session for the next day, in the hopes of seeing whether it was a random fluke caused by some sort of controller input issue or even my mind failing to remember how to play right out of the gate as good as I thought I could. I also wanted to see if using a speed class such as Tiny could be as broken as people have worried about online and as it appeared in my first session.

Cue my second session, which is where the two gameplay videos are from. I chose Papu Papu, a speed class racer, as my character, and appreciated getting the same two tracks again as I could properly compare my two sessions. As you can see from my footage, the speed class in CTR is incredibly flawed. I understand I could have been against seven other players who aren't as good at the game as I am, but the speed class of CTR is meant to have the worst handling of any other class. Despite that, I found myself handling the tracks with little issue, confirming two things; the handling issues I had in my first session were likely a one off problem, and that picking any other race class won't give you any advantages over the speed class. If I can make all the turns without a problem, why would I pick someone with higher handling? If my speed and handling allow me to get a huge lead, the acceleration class has nothing on me when I get stopped by items if I'm so far in front that no one will pass me, and any distance gained on me will be lost by my higher top speed increasing the distance between us.

Now don't get me wrong. If the speed class itself doesn't get changed at all, that isn't a problem. However, it's only not a problem if every other character can pick that engine. Otherwise, the roster for online will be cut down to about three characters that are viable if you want a chance of winning. If there is no option to switch engines for characters, then the speed class really needs to be changed to only be good on straights, but a loser in the corners. Even if this was the way it worked in the original CTR, this is the one time that keeping faithful to the original shouldn't happen. Just because it was unbalanced the first time around, doesn't mean it needs to be again.

Of course, if you don't intend to play online, that isn't going to be a problem at all. The CPU is unlikely to be as good as a human player, so you're not going to see Tiny and Dingodile pull of a sick U-turn and race off into the sunset like you might in online play. For the gameplay itself, I found no major issues that raise a red flag, but there were a few things I picked up on. Warp orbs have a very high spawn rate, with up to three of them racing after me at one point in Electron Avenue. Given how far ahead I was, had I been hit by all three it wouldn't have affected me, but I'd be interested to see how that high rate can affect a race when the pack is close together or if they were all fired by players with 10 wumpa fruit, as a maxed out warp orb will target all players, not just the person in first place.

The indicator for warp orbs also needs to be changed back to blue arrows, as I had to look at the map to tell if I was being targeted by one of those or a missile. It would be nice to know what's chasing me so I can tell whether I can stop it with an item drop or if I need to just haul ass to the finish line or pray for a protective item. Also, as I suspected, there is an issue with item spawns too. You'll see at 0:23 in Sewer Speedway I get a TNT on my head from nowhere. I'm not behind any player for it to have been dropped, and it isn't already sitting on the track. I hope that's some weird latency issue rather than a gameplay one, but either way that needs to be ironed out.

Outside of racing, the lobby itself is laid out very nicely. All eight racers are shown at the starting line on what appears to be Slide Coliseum, and you can change racers and karts up until everyone is ready to start. The kart choices were CTR, Team Bandicoot (CNK), Team Cortex (CNK), Team Trance (CNK), and Team Oxide (CNK). Kart colour is tied to the character, which I hope stays because colour association was a big thing with the karts in the original CTR (since the map was coloured dots instead of icons). Being able to see the stats of all the characters on the select screen is also a nice addition, as the original CTR only offered those stats in Adventure Mode's character select screen, which only featured the base eight players. I like not having to memorise what stats the boss characters have from some Wiki page.

Beenox's alterations to the CNK tracks to remove anti-gravity have also been done very well. I needed to watch a video of the original Electron Avenue to find where the track had been altered, and the changes in the new version fit with the rest of the track so well that I was surprised to see what was actually added. I think the true test of how well these changes are implemented will be on tracks that relied on them very heavily, such as Hyper Spaceway and Thunderstruck, or for tracks that used them as the track set piece, such as Out Of Time. If Beenox can pull it off with tracks like that, then there's going to be nothing to worry about.

Overall, there are a few niggles with the game, mostly in how items work and the balance problems of the speed class racers, but otherwise, the game feels very, very good to me and didn't show anything that was highly concerning or problematic like the hitbox in N. Sane Trilogy or the lack of polish the later parts of Reignited Trilogy received. If you don't even care for the online component, then I don't have anything to advise against throwing down $40 for the game at release.

[Mr EliteL]

Glad your second time with it was better, and not because of where you finished.

Watched both videos. Yeah, that TNT came out of nowhere. The heck? The speed class too, yeesh! Perhaps the spawn rate for Warp Orbs needs to be even higher, and they must travel quicker to make up for it. *shot* Hope it's fixed at least. Online/local multiplayer would be boring with everyone using only them. Were there reps there, at all? Just wondering if they were watching any gameplay to notice. Did you watch other people playing too, and the same thing happened when 1st place players had Tiny or the other two?

[Moonface]

Were there reps there, at all? Just wondering if they were watching any gameplay to notice. Did you watch other people playing too, and the same thing happened when 1st place players had Tiny or the other two?

There were members of the development team there until Saturday watching everything that was happening. I didn't watch too many other races, but not all of them ended with a speed class racer in first place. However, that was due to the players with those characters not being any more experienced at the game than anyone else playing, so it's hard to judge. You would need at least two experienced players with at least one using a speed class to try and begin determining how unbalanced the speed class truly is. If it isn't dealt with before launch, I could see Beenox putting out a patch to deal with it when they see players online all using the same class and ignoring 3/4 of the roster.

Also, a new trailer was put out today for Fake Crash, and it gives us our first look at CNK's Jungle Boogie:

[Moonface]

The Crash Bandicoot Twitter page just put out the first look at CNK's Inferno Island in CTR NF:

I like they made it a night track now to have it stand out from Crash Cove. I was expecting them to go with a sunset look to replicate Hot Coco from Warped, but I'm not complaining.

[Frank]

That's awesome you were able to go to PAX, very jealous!

[Moonface]

Nitros Oxide Edition Content and New Box Art Revealed
A new trailer showing the contents of the Nitros Oxide edition for Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled has been released, giving us our first look at Crunch, Zem, Zam, and the exclusive costumes:

As the trailer notes at the end, only the costumes are exclusive. Crunch, Zem, Zam, and Oxide are not exclusive, and are only unlocked instantly in the Nitros Oxide edition instead of the players needing to unlock them manually.

The Crash Bandicoot Twitter account also officially confirmed new box art for the game, and released an awesome full-sized image that's just perfect for a desktop wallpaper!

[Mr EliteL]

Inferno Island almost looks like a Halloween themed track with the change to night. At a quick glance as a small image, the crates look like pumpkins.

Glad the three newly revealed characters and Oxide aren't exclusive. I do like the outfits though, not sure if that's enough for me to get that edition. Maybe.