Our best tips and tricks for Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, just like the original game, is designed to be accessible to all kinds of different players. Whether you’re brand new to kart racers, or a seasoned veteran, you should be able to jump straight into just about any track and make a decent go of it.

But with that being said, Crash Team Racing is far from being just a simple game. If you owned a copy for the PlayStation back in the late 90s, you’ll know this better than anyone. It might be easy enough to start playing, sure, but there’s plenty for you to master here.

And with that in mind, we’ve put together the following video sharing some of our best tips and tricks ahead of Nitro-Fueled’s release on the 21st June.

First up, you’ll want to get to grips with how turbo boosting works in CTR. In short, it’s all about your exhaust pipe. You’ll want to drift around each and every corner, as you might expect, but you also need to keep looking at your exhaust fumes as you’re doing so. Once the smoke turns black, you’ll want to quickly tap one of the shoulder buttons on your controller to activate a short boost.

This will take some practice to get right, so make sure to take advantage of Nitro-Fueled’s new HUD which provides a handy turbo boost meter in the bottom right corner, showing exactly when you’ll need to activate it. The classic HUD is still available if you’d prefer, but its boost meter is a little trickier to read.

Oh and remember, you can only boost three times per drift! If you do manage to land that third and final boost, however, you’ll find that it’s especially powerful. Mastering this technique will win you races, we assure you.

Aside from that, you’ll want to be pressing jump every time you go over a ramp (or anything that even resembles a ramp, to be honest) as you race around each track. This gives you a small speed boost, with bigger jumps giving better boosts, and it’s one of the easiest ways to reliably improve your lap times. Spam. That. Button.

And of course, this is a Crash Bandicoot game, which means you shouldn’t forget about the Wumpa fruits. Collect 10 of these beauties and your kart will automatically start moving just a little bit faster. On top of this, your item pickups become super effective. This one’s a no brainer: find those 10 fruits as quickly as you can.

Finally, the real difference between a beginner player and someone more experienced is how well they know each track’s shortcuts. CTR has some absolute corkers too. We show a few of our favourites in the video accompanying this article, so make sure you’re watching closely.

That Sewer Speedway shortcut is not messing around. Oof.  Buy it now here

• Watch our video Then and Now to find out more about how the game has evolved.