My Top 5 Best Crash Team Racing Tracks

Ah, is there such a thing as too much Crash Bandicoot? I don't think there is. With the N Sane Trilogy coming to Steam this year, meaning I can FINALLY play the damn thing - there’s never been a better time for a nostalgia trip and revisiting classic PS1 era Crash after all, Crash Team Racing hasn’t been remastered… yet. I’ve already made a list of my most hated tracks, so today we’re doing the opposite. This is my top 5 personal favourite tracks from Crash Team Racing.

 5 - Coco Park
First on the list we’ve got Coco Park, which at first glance may seem like a generic or boring track from any old racing game - but Coco Park to me has the same appeal as Baby Park from Mario Kart. As it’s simplistic with large turns and wide roads, you’re welcome to experiment with lots of slides and turbos in order to build up maximum speed. It’s also a perfect track for practicing your aim with projectile weapons. Sometimes there’s nothing inherently bad about simplicity - and over complicating a track is worse, in my opinion. The music is also oddly addicting - very poppy and bouncy sounding and it suits Coco Bandicoot perfectly.

4 - Sewer Speedway
Next we have Sewer Speedway - a track that is clearly inspired by my favourite type of levels from Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, the sewer levels! With alternate routes, secret passages, crazy jumps and endless opportunity for sneaky overtaking or the downright evil yet hilarious tactic of placing explosives on track racers can’t avoid - Sewer Speedway is an awesome track to play with friends and CPUs alike. Also, managing to pull off a platinum relic using advanced driver Tiny Tiger is one of my prouder achievements in gaming - managing that near impossible slide, turbo, jump combo to reach the secret passageway that runs across the top of the level - amazing.

3 - N. Gin Labs
At number 3 we’ve got N. Gin Labs - one of the harder tracks in the game but also one of the more unique and frankly crazy. Let’s see - we’ve got turbo pads, huge ramp jumps, gigantic toxic waste barrels, 90 degree sharp turns and the amazing turbo tunnel that allows you to reach your maximum speed instantly as you race down it. A mix of careful navigating and reckless abandon to take risks is required if you ever hope to beat the platinum time trials on this track, or beat the hard CPU racers in arcade mode. Not only is the track fun to play against friends or CPU racers, it just fits N. Gin’s personality so well - with elements of science, industry and insanity. After Tiny Tiger, N. Gin is my favourite Crash Bandicoot villain - I’m a big fan of mad scientist types.

2 - Tiger Temple
Our runner up on this list goes to Tiger Temple - a track belonging to Pura the tiger and also bearing an uncanny resemblance to original Crash Bandicoot levels like Temple Ruins and Sunset Vista. The track is a mix of extra wide paths that allow for lots of jump boosts, sliding and launching from ramps and super narrow passageways that are full of fire-breathing gargoyles. However, the best thing about this track is the not-so-secret passageway. While not a secret to long time veterans, anybody new to the game wouldn’t spot it straightaway. To access this shortcut you must shoot this carving in the teeth with a projectile weapon like a bowling bomb or a potion thrown forward. He’ll part his teeth and you can squeak though, shaving off valuable seconds and crashing down on top of the clueless racers taking the long way round.

1 - Oxide Station
And my number 1, my personal favourite track in Crash Team Racing is Oxide Station. Though presented as one of the harder tracks in the game and the stage for the final race against Oxide himself, this track manages to balance complexity and hilarity with its frankly ridiculous amount of turbo pads, huge jumps and scrambled up box placements, often mixing fruit crates and item crates in together in one area. What’s not to like about a track where you’re hitting your top speed limit for half of the course and literally holding onto your car for dear life as you hurtle through literal space for the other half? Of course, the boss race against Oxide himself may sully your opinion on this track as he’s a cheating arsehole who begins the race before the flag is waved and hurls a near infinite amount of crap at you, beating his slimy alien arse and sending him packing is so damn satisfying.

 

My Top 5 Worst Crash Team Racing Tracks

I’m a big fan of Crash Team Racing - I’m generally not all that interested in realistic driving games, I wasn’t interested in Ridge Racer on the PS1 in the 90s and I’m not interested in Forza Motorsport on the Xbox One today. However, I do enjoy playing the more wacky and silly driving games - namely those that involve anthropomorphic creatures, downright dangerous power-ups and items you literally throw at one another and any tracks that involve flying, inhuman jumps or being underwater, in space or at the top of a mountain - basically anything that’s super unrealistic… 

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.

5 - Turbo Track
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.

4 - Dragon Mines
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!

3 - Polar Pass
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.

2 - Cortex Castle
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.

1 - Hot Air Skyway
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.