Prerelease:Crash Team Racing

This page details prerelease information and/or media for Crash Team Racing.

To do: This page is extremely outdated and will be replaced by a complete overhaul soon. Meanwhile, check the new version HERE. ~~Darkaiser

Story

Early Plot

"Neo Cortex isn't the only insane inventor on the Three Islands where Crash Bandicoot lives. Dr Nitros Oxide is about to unleash his own form of madness in an attempt to take over the world. After he suffered a terrible accident as a child, Nitros Oxide was transformed into an ultra-fast freak of nature. He challenged the inhabitants of the island to a racing tournament and retired undefeated after ten years of failing to find any genuine contenders for his crown. Bored and restless he turned his attentions towards taking over the world.

Learning of this, Dr Cortex has gathered both friends and lifelong enemies together in one united attempt to defeat Nitros Oxide once and for all. If just one of them can out race him, maybe they can stop him from operating The Hyper Activator – a power beam machine capable of turning the entire planet into a super fast speed zone. Each of the new contenders is now intent on taking the Hyper Activator for his or her own purposes – while Crash and his friends want to prevent it getting into the hands of a mad scientist, there's a whole slew of evil wackos who want it to grant them control over the world.

They decided to challenge each other in a series of races to find out who was the fastest, and most worthy, to face Nitros Oxide in the final showdown. The race to save the planet had begun!"

(Source: Sony PlayStation Autumn Winter Collection 99 - Press CD 3)

Q&A - Interview with Jason Rubin

Q. Who is Dr. Nitrus Oxide?

"A. Dr. Nitrus Oxide is a mad scientist obsessed with speed. In fact, he is so obsessed; he has hatched this terrible plan to speed up Crash's world, even though it will destroy all life on the planet, including Crash, Coco, and Dr. Cortex! Everyone has their own reason to try and stop the evil doctor... but nobody is fast enough to defeat him on the track, the one thing that will demoralise him enough to slow him down and make him vulnerable. Maybe, if they all compete together, one of them will become good enough in their Racer to give Oxide a run for his Hyper Activator."

Q. What’s the Hyper Activator?

"A. The Hyper Activator is a diabolical device that Nitrus Oxide has built to speed up the entire planet. When it is switched into overdrive, minutes become seconds and days become hours. Oxide, who was born hyper fast, will finally be comfortable with the world at this new speed. The rest of the citizens of the world, however, will be lost in an endless, mind-wrenching blur as everything around them zooms past at super speed. If this happens, Oxide will be able to do whatever he wants with the planet. All of the characters in Crash Team Racing have the same goal: Learn to race well, defeat Oxide, then Grab and then Destroy the Hyper Activator device attached to his vehicle."

(Source: Sony PlayStation Autumn Winter Collection 99 - Press CD 3)

Wrench Mechanic

According to an article published by Electronic Games Magazine a month before the game's release and a Q&A Interview with Jason Rubin, the player would receive Gold Wrenches by beating a level or boss in order to upgrade the kart's performance. The reason why they were removed is unknown.

(Source: Electronic Games Magazine Issue 122, page 106)

Q. What vehicles are available in Crash Team Racing? Does Coco still get to ride the tiger?

A. The tiger, who is named Pura, is actually one of the racers. All of the characters in Crash Team Racing ride in the same stock Racer. Their weights and talents change the base abilities of each of the racers, however. In addition, players can customise the three main abilities of their Racer: top speed, cornering, and acceleration, by competing in the Adventure mode of the game. These powered up vehicles can then be saved to the memory card and moved into the multi-player arenas.

(Source: Sony PlayStation Autumn Winter Collection 99 - Press CD 3)

Unused Ice-Themed Track

Rob Titus, former Naughty Dog developer, created a track reusing the assets from the other snow tracks. The track was 98% done, and was eventually shown to Jason Rubin and Evan Wells. But they didn't have time to debug it, thus, the track didn't appear on the game.

Rob Titus: "Yes, I created a short figure 8 track that was all ice. It crossed over itself and was so fun! I was reusing the snow level assets and I had it about 98% done. It took me about a day to do. Showed it to Jason and Evan, but we didn't have time to debug it. It was very fun."

(Source: Reddit)

Earliest Screens

This is the earliest known build of the game. It contains a lot of differences and oddities:

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• There are no CPUs in the game. Crash is the only playable character.
• There is no exhaust gas coming out of the player's kart.
• The turbo power-up uses a very different icon and seems to be the only item present at this point.
• There is no icon positions.
• The symbol that represents the player on the map is a small square instead of a big blinking ball.
• The crate textures are different.
• The single lap time uses the full word LAP1 instead of L1.
• The player has 10 Wumpas in one of the screenshots, which is impossible in the final version.
• Notice how Crash is racing alone, but he is still in different positions, being that there's no one in front of him.

Crash Cove

• There is no start banner.
• The finish line is placed far behind.
• There are two small bridges instead of a big one.
• The map format is different.

Roo's Tubes

Roo's Tubes has a greenish color.

Blizzard Bluff

• The ice has a different texture and has no reflection.
• There is a ? crate instead of a Wumpa crate near the finish line.
• The start banner has a unique texture never seen in the final version.
• The snowball has a totally white texture.

Dragon Mines

• The level shading has a dark purple/red tone.
• The bridge section is reddish.

B-Roll Footage

A B-roll video showcasing a very early, but more complete version was widely used among many press media before the game's release. This build is very unfinished and contains a lot of glitches and unfinished features. Most of the sources share the same raw footage, but using different parts of the video.

Super Juegos

This page or section has one or more broken YouTube links. Please find an archived version of the video(s) or a suitable replacement.

This video from Super Juegos claims that this build is 30% complete.

• This is the earliest known build featuring the character rankings. Crash, Coco, Tiny Tiger, N. Gin, and Polar are using early icons.
• The game has no music or voice clips.
• An early design for the speedometer is used.
• The weapon icons are very different and most of them look like hand-drawn sketches, except for TNT and Missile.
• Just like the previous build, the start line on each track used to be unique. According to Rob Titus, former Naughty Dog developer, this was scrapped because the developers didn't like how it looked, plus the start lines affected the gameplay. Thus, all the different start lines were scrapped in favour of the start banner of all the tracks seen in the final version.
• The lap counter used to be separated by a hyphen, whereas in the final version, it's separated by a slash.
• Despite showing that the player is in a specific place, the icons keep showing otherwise. The reason why this happens is because the position of the characters hasn't yet been properly programmed, hence why the icons don't seem to match with the actual position of the characters and appear to randomly change every second.
• There is no exhaust gas coming out of the karts.
• The CPU racers have static animations. They don't even have turning left or right animations at this point.
• 00:06 Notice that the player just crossed the finish line, but the lap counter hasn't changed, meaning at this point in development many tracks weren't even possible to finish.
• 00:08 Tiger Temple's walls are very simple and use a basic texture. Also, it seems there are ice textures over the backgrounds, but due to the quality, it's hard to say what they meant to be. There are unused textures that can be seen in the floor. The rain effect on the track is also missing.
• 00:11 The crates are in a different placement.
• 00:22 The removed Spring power-up is used.
• 00:24 There are four Wumpas on the track instead of a single Wumpa crate.

E3 1999 Gamestore VHS

Starts at 1:19:40.

• The item roulette doesn't have any sound effects.
• Collecting a Wumpa fruit doesn't show the pick-up HUD animation.
• The Bowling Bomb explosion has a greenish color.
• Touching another racer will make the player lose Wumpas.
• N. Gin's icon always appears during Multiplayer, even though he isn't nowhere to be seen in the level.
• 1:19:59 Roo's Tubes used to look a lot greener and had different structures around the glass ceiling. There are also 6 Wumpa fruits in the road.
• 1:20:09 The hill right before the tunnel has "COCO" written with flowers. There is also another Tiny Tiger on the race, which is impossible to have copies of the same characters in the final version. Finally, the Turbo Pad is pointing to a wrong direction.
• 1:20:30 The billboards used to have Cortex's face on them instead of Pinstripe's. Since Cortex already has his own track (Cortex Castle), this was probably changed so that it would become Pinstripe's track.
• There are a lot of Wumpa Fruits in the middle of the road.
• 1:20:51 A lot of Dingo Canyon objects are missing in 4-Player mode, such as Wumpas, boxes, turbo pads, armadillos, etc. The "LAP" string was present in 3/4-player modes, and the powerslide bar is missing.
• 1:20:53 When P1 was hit by a Missile, the character didn't flip. Instead, the wall crash animation was used.
• 1:21:27 Several animations are unfinished, being easily noticeable during jumping animations on Dingo Canyon's 4-Player mode.
• 1:21:31 The lap counter doesn't increase after crossing the finish line.

Des Souris et des Roms

Starts at 15:53.

• 16:01 Notice how the player has 24 Wumpa fruits, meaning that the max number was probably unlimited at this point.
• 16:12 Crash is protected by Uka Uka, but using the rainbow trail effect from Aku Aku's, even though the mask power-up icon and sound effect are from Aku Aku instead. The most plausible explanation is Uka Uka was added to the game before Aku Aku, which can be noticed in the final game by changing the character ID to an empty slot, where the default mask will always be set to Uka Uka. Lastly, he also retains his model from Crash Bandicoot: Warped.
• The statue flames in Tiger Temple looks more like sparkles.

Demo Disc Trailer

• 0:48 The final turbo pad in Dingo Canyon is red and white.
• 0:50 It can be seen that Tiny Tiger is jumping very high, after the start line.
• 0:52 Both players are in first place, according to the HUD. The powerslide bar is also missing.
• 1:02 Cortex again didn't flip after being hit by a Warp Orb. Coco Park also has a different sky background in Multiplayer mode.
• 1:08 Armadillos and the Wumpa crate on the right path are missing.

Early Power-ups

• All are older icons of existing power-ups, except the first one:
  • The first is an unused power-up, a spring that makes you hop high for a single time. According to Rob Titus, former Naughty Dog developer, this power-up was considered unnecessary, thus was removed.
  • The second is the early icon of the Warp Orb.
  • The third is the early icon of the Power Shield.
  • The fourth is the early icon of the Bowling Bomb.
  • The fifth is the early icon of the Missile Tracker.
  • The sixth is the early icon of the Aku Aku Mask.
  • The seventh is the early icon of the Turbo.
• When using the Warp Orb, it would hit the opponents, but it doesn't stun them too long and their karts doesn't jump and crash, like in the final version.
• Oddly, those who were near the Warp Orb have a weird green effect in their heads that lasts about 5 seconds.

Cybernet

The video shows a late prerelease build of Crash Team Racing,

• At 0:58 Cortex uses a missile to hurt himself.
• Crash uses Uka Uka as a mask.
• The Warped icons are re-used.

E3 Demo

There isn't much information about the build seen at the booth, but at least five different levels were playable. It is not known how many levels were actually playable, but it's likely to be eight tracks, each one covering one of the eight starter characters.

The following levels have been confirmed to have been playable:

Track	Character
Crash Cove	Coco Bandicoot
Tiger Temple	Polar
Dingo Canyon	Crash Bandicoot
Papu's Pyramid	Dr. Neo Cortex
Blizzard Bluff	Tiny Tiger

PlayStation Club Vol. 18

Starts at 2:25.

• The two Wumpa boxes are missing in Tiger Temple. Instead, there is a single Wumpa fruit.

PlayStation Underground Coolest Games

Starts at 4:11.

• The CPU racers including the player start in random positions.

Fuse & PlayStation Power

Starts at 5:22.

• The demo mode shows a 4-player gameplay. In the final version, only 1-player mode is showcased.
• The demo sentence is longer, and says "play" instead of "exit".

Des Souris et des Roms

Starts at 15:56.

• Early start lights.

Screenshots

A couple magazines, websites, and disc media from mid-1999 featured images of early versions of the game.

GamePro Magazine Issue 132

Mystery Caves

• The cave water is blue instead of yellowish.
• The floor textures are different.

Polar Pass

There is a Wumpa Fruit in the road (In the final version there are only Wumpa crates).

Electronic Games Magazine Issue 122

Mystery Caves

The layout in the split part used to be longer and more tighter.

PlayStation Zone Vol. 13 (Germany)

Polar Pass

• There is a whale jumping over the bridge.
• The single lap time is frozen at 0:00:00.
• The HUD shows Points instead of Lap, making believe that the player could be playing in Battle Mode (which is impossible on 1P mode), as a result of the track being unfinished and without the laps programmed.
  • The Points text was also a placeholder before the skull icon was added in Battle Mode.
• There are no player icons or race positions being displayed, and oddly enough it isn't Time Trial mode as power-ups and Wumpa fruits are enabled, and CPU players are present in the race, as evidenced by the map.
• The map icon is transparent.

NextGen Magazine Issue 57

Tiny Arena

• There is no Tiny's face on the background of the stadium. Instead, there is an unknown figure.
• There is a Wumpa Fruit in the road (in the final version there are only Wumpa crates).
• CPU racers are disabled.

Mystery Caves

• Mystery Caves now has its final textures, but it's still missing the CPUs.

The Auto Channel Preview

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Mystery Caves

• The fence on the left is colored pinkish due to a texture bug.
• Crash is racing alone, probably because the racers weren't programmed for this track yet.
• The track uses the textures from Papu's Pyramid as a placeholder.
• There are two fireballs jumping instead of being one at a time.
• The map is slightly different and shows that there was an extra shortcut near the start line.

Battle Mode

• The game used to have the word Points instead of the usual skull icon.
• The 4-Player mode didn't have colored borders for each player's screen, which represents the color of the selected team.
• The players don't have colored marks above them on the other player's screen.

(Source: The Auto Channel)

Miscellaneous Screenshots

• The players start in random positions.
• The race intro was different, which didn't show the name of the track and the game mode.
• The power slide bar wasn't added below the minimap yet.
• There is no smoke coming out of the karts of the CPU players.
• The lap counter used to be separated by a hyphen, whereas in the final version, it's separated by a slash.
• Notice the debug font saying NO SAVED GAME DATA in the upper left corner.

• The numbers on top of the character icons are all shown red, which means everyone has already finished the race.
• The HUD would remain on-screen after a race was over. This is further evidenced by the camera angle.
• Even though the player has 10 Wumpa Fruits, the counter isn't glowing.

Euro Demo 51 Video

Euro Demo released a demo disc containing a trailer of Crash Team Racing. The build used here shows the first appearance of the final speedometer design. Screenshots of the same, or at least closer build also appears on PlayStation Autumn Winter Collection 99.

• The speedometer design now has been changed to its final design. However, the jump height numbers seems to be unfinished, as their colors keep switching between black and grey at some moments.
• This is the first time we see the menu background, and it uses a very different, dark checkered flag in the background. The exact same menu is used in the August 5th, 1999 prototype.
• Crash has bigger eyes on his model menu.
• This build doesn't have any CTR start banners on the levels.
• The Wumpa sound effect after collecting 10 Wumpa fruits is different.
• Crash is racing alone in Oxide Station, however the HUD numbers for other characters are still shown, and the player is able to pick power-ups and collect Wumpas, meaning they're playing in 1P Arcade mode. The most plausible reason is because Oxide Station was one of the last tracks to be worked on, so the CPU route wasn't finished yet, which explains why the track still has many differences in this build, despite being a late prototype. Another point is that you can hear Dingo Canyon's theme as placeholder.
• At 0:29, right after the low-gravity area, the tunnel leading to the big fall used to be entirely covered in Turbo Pads.
• At 0:45, the player can be seen getting an unknown power-up. It's possible that either Invisibility or Super Engine power-ups are one of the given items, as in the prototype builds, getting them in 1P Mode shows an empty icon as well. There is also a giant square covering both the Wumpa counter and the power-up, most likely a glitch.
• At 0:54, the 4-Player mode characters are using their high-poly models, which can be seen only in that specific clip. It's possible this footage was running on a workstation. The ordinal number suffix for player positions is also missing.
• Some CPU routes are different, as noticed in 1:25 where N. Gin's AI breaks that Wumpa crate. This behavior is never seen in the final version.
• At 1:15, the mine carts in Dragon Mines have red lights instead of white.
• At 1:01, the middle bit had floor textures not used in the final version. The low-gravity area also used to have Turbo Pads pointing at wrong directions.
• At 2:06, Cortex Castle has four Wumpa crates instead of two, in the big jump section.
• At 2:11, there is a completely removed feature of the track that would go from a ramp into one of four possible tubes. A removed brown object can be also seen seconds before the ramp.
• At 2:24, a glitch causes the game to display the Wrong Way! message during the low-gravity area.

PlayStation Autumn Winter Collection 99

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• The first ? crates in N. Gin Labs are positioned a little behind.
• Those tall, yellow laboratory devices could be seen in N. Gin Labs.
• Aku Aku and Uka Uka used to use their models from previous games before new models were created.

Early August Prototype

A couple North-American magazines from around October/November 1999 featured preview articles of the game containing a slightly late prototype built after the Euro Demo 51 video. This is the last known build using the very early character icons, and all these differences matches the August 5th, 1999 prototype.

Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine Volume 3 Issue 1

Oxide Station

• Oxide Station is now finished at this point, with CPUs functional and the four tube path removed.
• The speedometer numbers are now the same as final.

Setup Battle

• This is also the last known build using the early dark checkered flag.
• The available point options are 10, 15, and 20. It was reduced to 5, 10, and 15 in the final version.
• The "Type:" and "Length:" strings were moved further down in the final version.

Adventure Mode

• The requirement to unlock Turbo Track in Adventure mode was originally 15 relics, instead of 5 gems.
• Notice how the player is already in Gem Stone Valley having 3 trophies and no keys, which requirements to enter are 4 trophies and 1 key. The reason why the player could access this area so early is because originally, Adventure mode would start on Gem Stone Valley and would let you access multiple zones at the same time, in this case, N. Sanity Beach and The Lost Ruins.
• No other symbols besides the Tracks and the Gem Cups are seen in the map (No save monitor, no Boss Symbol, no Other Zones Road).
• The symbol that represents the player is different than the one from the final version, seems that is the one that the player uses in-races.

GamePro Magazine Issue 134

Race Finish

• The position numbers are in red in the race ratings.
• The menu's background design doesn't have blue borders.

Late August Prototype

Another late build was shown in multiple pieces of media, with most of them sharing the same raw footage. This prototype was also vastly used for preview/review articles in European magazines. At first sight it closely resembles the Review Copy prototype due to the updated icons, however there are a lot more differences.

The Making of CTR

This is a behind the scenes look at the making of Crash Team Racing, found on PlayStation Underground Vol. 3 Issue 4 (Disc 1). It's the video that most contains info about this proto due to its length.

• The checkered flag background is now the same as final.
• The CTR start line banner is now added on the tracks, but it has different textures at the corners.
• At 0:10, the Wumpa sound effect is different.
• At 0:25, Aku Aku and Uka Uka now use their in-game models from the final game, however Uka Uka's eyes still have a different texture.
• At 1:05, the start lights were updated and don't have black borders anymore, but they still aren't the final design.
• At 1:23 and 1:26, an early final lap jingle can be heard. The same sound is also used in the August 5, 1999 prototype.
• At 1:33, the player can access CTR Challenge and Relic Race without needing a boss key. The warp vortex particles are also different.
• At 1:35, there is no box counter in Relic Race. The Gold Relic time for Dragon Mines is 7 seconds higher.
• At 1:52, the character selection menu is still very unfinished. Regardless of how many human players are chosen, the character menu always uses the 4-player layout, containing four player slots, and the character 3D models rotating are absent. Instead, it shows the character names inside the blank slots.
  • Crash, Tiny Tiger, N. Gin, Ripper Roo, Papu Papu, Komodo Joe, Pinstripe, and Fake Crash's icons were updated, but only Ripper Roo and Komodo Joe reached their final forms.
  • The icons don't turn black after choosing a character. The colored outlines stop blinking instead.
  • The names have a simple writing. Crash is just called "Crash" instead of "Crash Bandicoot", and N. Gin is called "Ngin".
  • A small font is used for both character names and Select Character strings.
  • Compared to the final 4-player screen, Penta Penguin and Fake Crash have swapped places.

Promotional Trailer

• At 0:09, the CTR start banner was glitched in Hot Air Skyway.
• At 0:15, the Adventure minimap seems to be disabled. It's impossible to do it in the final version.
• At 0:24, the characters start positions in 1P Arcade mode are now the same as final.

Superjuegos Magazine Issue 90

Aku Aku

• Aku Aku's animations and facial expressions are reused from his hint dialogue model of the Japanese versions of Crash 2 and 3. He doesn't have any expressions in the final version.
• His model has a darker tone.
• In the first screenshot, the "To hear this hint again ..." message is missing.

Ripper Roo's Challenge

Ripper Roo is way ahead of the player, however there are no TNTs on the track, most likely because the bosses didn't have any special weapons at this point yet.

Button Pad Icons

The PS1 button pad icons have a golden color.

Podium

• N. Gin's model looks very unfinished in the podium pose. There's also no smoke coming out of his rocket.
• Dingodile is standing instead of sitting.

PSX Magazine Issue 34

Level Select

• Slide Coliseum was originally a secret track along with Turbo Track.
• Roo's Tubes level preview is from a very old version.

Podium

• Pura isn't licking his paw.
• Tiny's feet and hands are different.

Warp Vortex

• The warp vortex has small flashing lights coming out of it.
• Notice how the player has 5 keys, which is impossible in the final version since when defeating Oxide the player would receive a star instead of a key.

N. Oxide's Challenge

• The boss intro has a different camera angle.
• N. Oxide's hovercraft has a different window frame.

PlayStation Pro Issue 51

Aku Aku Effect

• Aku Aku has a purple effect around him, probably from an early shown up animation effect.
• The Gem Cups area doesn't have a door.

Podium

Coco is standing in second place. In the final version, she is only standing during the first place animation.

N. Gin Labs

N. Gin Labs has weird lighting and shading.

Hobby Consoles Issue 97

Versus

There's no Cup mode in the game.

PlayStation Zone Vol. 15 (Germany)

Adventure Mode

• The Adventure Mode originally started on Gem Stone Valley, unlike the final version which starts on N. Sanity Beach.
• The symbol of the green "Load/Save" screen in the map is absent.

Manual Build

Warp Vortex

The warp vortex is surrounded by a checkered pattern. According to Rob Titus, former Naughty Dog developer, this was removed because it didn't look so well.

Japanese Prototypes

These protos were built around near of the game's development cycle, so most of the changes come from late/near-final prototypes.

Starts at 9:30.

This one is identical to the Review Copy prototype, except all of the game's text are in Japanese.

Starts at 22:20.

This one is very near to the final NTSC-J version and a lot of Japanese localization changes were added, however it retains some early elements from NTSC-U builds.

• The menu order is different: Arcade, Versus, Battle, Adventure, Time Trial. It's the same one used in the Japanese Trial prototype.
• Tiny Tiger is still using his old icon.
• There are no difficulty rankings for tracks.
• The start lights still use the old design.
• The power-up roulette has a different sound effect.