Crash Team Racing! Tips N' Tricks
Welcome, internet! This one may be late yet again, but that's okay ( at least I hope it's okay) because nobody worries about me not putting out content, in fact, I doubt many of the people who read this even bother with the first part, simply because it's me talking with no relation to the game of the day, except introducing said game, in which today we're doing Crash Team Racing!
I've already reviewed Crash Tag Team racing, which isn't very similar to this game at all. In fact, there are tons of differences, like the lack of on-foot platforming, lack of car selection, much more colorful cast, appearance of who is possibly my favorite henchman ever, Tiny Tiger, and lack of ninja penguins. But enough of the ninja penguins. We're going to be digging through some fun things in this game, as well as an interesting tidbit or two.
First will be some trivia...or, sort of. Did you know, Ripper Roo was originally intended to have full dialogue in CTR (Crash Team Racing). He says, “You think you're crazy enough to race me? I should face Oxide in the big race!” (It's much easier to think of that maniacal laughing voice in dialogue.) I'm guessing the laughter was used because if felt more fitting for Ripper Roo's character, who is, simply put, maniacal. You can still find the audio files in the games coding, as well as some of Oxide, the final boss. It seems that Oxide was going to taunt you along your adventure, talking to you after each boss battle.
As far as the final boss goes, Did you know that he was originally intended to be playable? There exist different Gameshark codes which allow you to play as oxide, and he has a few dialogue files which were supposed to operate with the code. Though it is unsure why he was cut. In my opinion, he seemed to take up too much of the track, considering his car is more than twice the size of the normal cars. Also, I could speculate that it would have taken up more data on the disc to fully animate Oxide's character for multiplayer.
On the subject of unlocked Characters, You can actually unlock quite a few. You unlock N. Tropy (from Crash 3) by completing all of the time trials under a certain time, then defeating his ghost. This will also unlock oxide's ghost for you to race. If you beat him on every track, you will unlock the scrapbook, which contains concept art, photos of conventions, and tons other things from naughty dog for you to look at. You can also unlock six other characters:Ripper Roo, Papu Papu, Komodo Joe, Pinstripe, Penta Penguin, and Fake Crash. You can unlock all but Penta Penguin by completing the gem cups in adventure mode. You can, however, enter him via a button code while holding R1 and L1 at the main screen.
Another interesting to point out about Penta penguin is that e seems to only be unlockable via codes, and can't be unlocked through normal gameplay. He has a few other strange things about him, as well. First, as you play as him, notice the odd things he sometimes says, which seem like another language, or perhaps some gibberish. It sounds like these recordings were unintentional. Also, if you play as Penta in a time trial, You will be able to use the Aku Aku mask, but instead, you will find Uka Uka circling him, as well as Aku Aku's music. The opposite will happen in race or battle mode, where you will see the Uka Uka Icon, but will have Aku Aku circling him. It's be easy to infer that He was more of a fleshed out place holder for oxide, taking up less data, but not really making sense within the game, or in story. This is just a rumor I came up with, though, and shouldn't be taken seriously.
Like any good racing game, you can find shortcuts in almost every track. Some are more subtle, like in Tiger Temple. Others are more obvious, Like the obvious broken path in Cortex castle. The only track I haven't found a notable shortcut in so far is Slide Colliseum, which is unlocked much later on in the game, and Coco Park. You can also drive onto the pirate ship in crash cove (the one by the dock and the sunken one near the finish line). Each ship will have only one crate on it. You can jump over an entire wall in polar pass, and at one of the splits in the road, you can see the big mama polar bear frozen in the ice!
One more thing I'd like to point out one other thing, going back to single player. Actually, It's multiple things. More specifically, multiple codes. There are a ton of unlock codes in this game, ranging from unlocing tracks, to unlocking characters, to even allowing you to cheat in the adventure mode by means of keeping one item infinitely. There are even some things you can do only by codes, like unlocking the turbo counter, which displays how many time's you've consecutively used a turbo. Apparently, there's also a glitch in the game involving these codes, which disrupts the text, and stops the NPC characters in adventure mode from using their dialogue. You have to enter codes in a rythmic pattern of clockwise, then clockwise starting from the x button as soon as the playstation starts up. I haven't actually seen this happen, but I thought it'd be worth mentioning the possibility of this tying into Ripper Roo's dialogue. But that's too big a stretch to really consider. I am nuts, after all.
Anyway, there is one more big shortcut I'd like to talk about before closing this up. In sewer speedway, there is a hole just coming out of the forked section at the start of the race. This is one of the most difficult jumps for you to make, and is often easier to just ignore. But, if you pull it off right, you can shave of a good few seconds from your time. The key is to have a high powered boost, such as a juiced Turbo pick up, or Aku Aku/Uka Uka. It also helps to have Tiny or Dingodile, who have more acceleration than anything else. You have to ramp off of the farther end of the pipe, and boost jump up the other end to get the appropriate height. You can see Oxide do this in the Time Trials.
I wanted to give this one it's own Paragraph because it's undoubtedly one of the best shortcuts in the game, if you ask me. I already love this track for it's overall design. It's got a decent challenge to it, without making all of it's hints as obvious as the others, and throwing in tons of variety. Throw in this neat little shortcut, which offers even more interesting design, and my hat's off to you, Naughty Dog. You guys really nailed it with this level.
Well, I think I should finish up here. This game was one of the best entries in the Sony Playstation lineup, and really deserved the praise it got. The levels were wonderfully crafted, and there were goodies for gamers of all kinds. It had tons of replay value, and even today has plenty of interesting gems to dig out. And we'll dig out more as we come to them, but for now, I'll see you guys soon!
