Crash Team Racing is one of my favourite driving games and one of my top PS1 games overall - I played it to death as a kid and still enjoy the odd spot of it now and then as an adult when I’m looking for a nostalgia trip. However, nostalgia goggles cannot hide the atrocity of the tracks on this list. This is my personal least favourites - this is my Top 5 Worst Crash Team Racing Tracks.
For me, this track is more of a disappointment than anything. I went into this track expecting turbo pads to the extent that Oxide Station has - multiple ones in rows for tons of speed boosts, crazy turbo jumps and basically a track where you’d always be going at your top speed. That’s not the case with Turbo Track - it only has a handful of boost pads, of which you’re expected to maintain your turbo between them - the gaps between them are also quite large and features some really tight turns that are near impossible for an advanced level driver. It’s also quite a generic and boring track when compared to the others that are decked out with Crash Bandicoot lore and loveliness - it’s just a boring circuit that would fit in with any realistic boring racing game - not Crash Team Racing.
Next, we've got Dragon Mines - the home track of Komodo Joe - and also the track you race him on for his boss key. This track is a perfect mix of annoying tropes - water hazards, pit drops, large obstacles that can squash you, awkward turns and tons of blockades you can easily crash into and even some shortcuts that put you at a worse advantage if you use them! CPU opponents, oddly enough never get squashed by the minecarts, never slow down in the water and never fall off the rickety wooden platforms - but I can guarantee that you will! Also, why is a mine related to the Komodo Brothers? In Crash Bandicoot 2, they were depicted as samurai - not gold prospectors!
In third place, we've got the token ICE LEVEL. Every countdown of the hardest, worst or most frustrating levels in a game will no doubt feature an underwater level or an ice level. Thankfully, the underwater level Roo’s Tubes is actually a bearable track - but no such luck with Polar Pass. Crash Team Racing actually features TWO ice and snow tracks and a snow themed hub world. However, whereas Blizzard Bluff is more of a snow track, Polar Pass is an ice track through and through - complete with the traction, or lack of it that comes with driving on icy surfaces. What makes this track more annoying are the jumps, tight corners and the stupid seals that feel the need to CONSTANTLY get in your way… I've lost count of how many times I've crashed, span out or fallen off the glacier. The one saving grace of this track is seeing the annoying polar bear from Crash Bandicoot 2 encased in a block of ice.
In 2nd place, it's Cortex Castle. Just look at this map. Did the designers use a protractor when they made this track? Look at all these tight corners - some of them are practically 90 degrees! It's almost impossible to take these turns at maximum speed whilst using an advanced driver. Even some intermediate drivers would find them difficult. Along with the corners, there's also lots of jumps, sudden drops and massive spiders that drop from the ceiling and cause your driver to spin out. The item boxes are placed in such a manner that the drivers in front will take all of them and not leave a single one for those in the back - in general the track is unfair when played against CPU opponents and hilariously infuriating when playing with friends.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for the winner of the most obvious place award! The worst Crash Team Racing track, in my humble opinion, is Hot Air Skyway. This track is simply infuriating - it consists of a bunch of weird fabric pathways suspended in the air with infinite chances of falling off the edge or being pushed off the edge. Some like to say it’s the Crash Team Racing equivalent of Rainbow Road from Mario Kart. I’m inclined to both agree and disagree on this one. The equivalent Mario Kart of the time was Mario Kart 64 - the Mario Kart with the WORST Rainbow Road. Why? It had WALLS. Rainbow Road should never have WALLS. Thus, Hot Air Skyway wins the battle of the 5th-gen air suspended race tracks. To add insult to injury, you have to play this track a minimum of SIX times throughout adventure mode - once for the trophy, once for the CTR token, once for the relic, once for Pinstripe’s key, once during the yellow gem cup and once during the purple gem cup. It has one saving grace however. The music is pretty good.
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