However, while winning is always your priority, it does sometimes pay to remain in the mix until the last feasable moment. Employing the two rather than just sticking with one can make the difference between extending a lead, or being pulled back into the dogfight.

There are two ways to steer your kart – either a standard left or right turn (using the '4' or '6' keys), or a drifting turn (using '1' or '3') that enables you to slide around major corners while keeping your speed up. With the game taking care of acceleration for you (this can be switched off), steering, jumping over obstacles and making use of power-ups fall under your control. That's not to say that skill isn't welcome at Nitro Kart 3D's party, however.

So, rather than being a punishment, finding yourself at the back is actually an invitation to bomb and barge your way back into the top spot. But this isn't a critcism – Crash Bandicoot, in any form, isn't a series with a great grip on realism. In the same spirit, it's perfectly possible to bumble your way to the front or find yourself lagging through almost no fault of your own. What that results in is a batch of fairly hectic races where you can zip from the front to the back (and, indeed, vice versa) in a matter of seconds. Each track comes with a bevvy of jumps, tight turns and obstacles to avoid, as well as power-ups that litter the track (enabling you to take down rivals with bombs, missiles and an assortment of other traps), plus shields and speed boosts to protect your own progress. Coming with a variety of cup challenges, a Time Attack mode and even a story tied in, the basic goal is to finish first.

Nitro Ka rt 3D is an almost identical game – albeit dressed in the accoutrement of the Crash Bandicoot series – but the framework Nintendo's most famous karting franchise provides enables Nitro Kart to serve up an unfussy and entertaining package without getting wrapped up with trying to reinvent the wheel.Īs such, there's very little that surprises in terms of Nitro Kart 3D's structure or style of play. Anyone who has ever sampled any Mario Kart in any of its numerous iterations won't be surprised by what Polarbit has presented here. It would be remiss of me not to mention the fact that Crash's car calamity is far from original. If Nitro Kart 3D is anything to go by, this beast was born to drive. I've personally no idea just what a bandicoot is, or whether it's even legal for one to take to the road (presumably, in real life the only time you'd ever come across one when behind the wheel is in its 2D form, having been flattened – which reminds me, we've previously reviewed the standard version of Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart on mobile), but from this day forward, I'm going to be encouraging this odd union.

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