CTR’s options are similar to many of the other kart clones out there: Adventure, Time Trial, Arcade, Vs., Battle, and High Score. In adventure mode you take control of one of 8 characters and venture around Adventure Island, racing for trophies and keys in order to open up more tracks (25 in all) and boss races. The ultimate goal of the game is to defeat the evil alien racer, Nitrous Oxide, and ensure that he does not enslave the earth. As you progress through adventure mode Aku Aku will pop up occasionally and give you hints on how to race, such as how to power slide (which I’m sure most of us are already familiar with) or how to increase your top speed. The only other item that really sticks out, is the battle mode where you, and up to 3 other players, face off in an arena with the weapons used decided by those people playing. You can choose to win by most hits within a certain time or by the first person to reach a designated number of hits. Pretty standard stuff.

Gameplay is a definite mix of many popular kart titles, but Naughty Dog still had a few tricks up their sleeves. Each character has their own stats based on speed, acceleration, and turning ability, allowing the player to pick someone that will best fit their driving style. Besides each character being able to use the classic power slide, you also have a power slide boost. While power sliding, you can time a push the L1 button to give yourself a speed boost, as many as 3 times per power slide. Learning to properly use this ability is the key to success in this game. CTR also has a myriad of weapons placed around the track in ? boxes, ranging from missiles to bowling bombs that have a twist of their own. Specifically placed around the track are fruit that you can collect as well. Once you have picked up 10 pieces of fruit, your weapons and kart will become more powerful, adding an extra bonus for going out of your way to collect them. Your fruit will decrease if you are hit by weapons or fall off the track, so you are certainly not invincible when powerd up. Lastly, depending on which track you are on, the computer AI can go from ruthless to just plain pathetic, a definite minus, but the game always had a new challenge waiting for me. While much of the gameplay is unoriginal, it had enough tweaks to keep me highly entertained.

Now you may be thinking, that is all fine and dandy but what about my multi-player mode?! Fear not, CTR does not let you down in that regard either. I had a chance to play a good number matches against a friend of mine, and we had a load of fun. From what we saw, there was no slowdown or loss of frames in the two player mode . Unfortunately I do not have a multitap, so I am unable to tell you what the 3 or 4 player modes are like. Even without the multitap mode, this game is highly entertaining. Even watching a race or battle is a lot of fun.

Let’s not forget the graphics, which are some of the best I’ve seen on the Playstation recently. Everything in the game is incredibly solid and smooth, no clipping or anything. I sat through a set of races looking for major graphical glitches and could not find a single one. The tracks have many different textures, from smooth to bumpy, all handled beautifully by the Playstation. Naughty Dog’s programmers continue to amaze me with every new game they make.