Right, let's start the game. It starts out with Rasta sitting in his kart, when Uka Uka flies up and gives you a tutorial. Not much to say about that - basically, he just tells you that the glowing dots on the world map represent races you can compete in. Yeah, because I couldn't have figured that out on my own (I still have the manual, but not the game - yeah, I don't know why either). Also, he calls the world map the "Adventure Arena", even though it isn't, y'know, an arena. One amusing thing is that, while this is going on, Rasta just grins and stares into space. "Dude... I know this. Shut up." I feel ya, Rasta.
Anyway, there's two tracks open - Crash Cove and Roo's Tubes - but I'm just going to drive around first and get used to the emulator's keyboard controls (I can't plug my DualShock into my computer). Since I'm not using a controller, I have to steer with the arrow keys, which could turn out to be a problem, because Rasta's steering really does suck. Yeah, he is fast, but he cannot take a corner for the life of him. A bit of flipping through the manual reveals that I can powerslide around corners (oh boy, another thing from Mario Kart!), and get a boost by doing so. So I practice that for a bit, and when I get good at it (after activating a few more irritating Uka Uka tutorials, and finding out that the boss of this zone is Ripper Roo), I go into...
Crash Cove
Right off the bat, I have a bit of a failure here. See, you can get a boost at the start of a race by revving up the engine before the race starts, but I revved it too much and it backfired, so I started off in last. Poop. Still, I caught up fairly quickly, because this is your typical beginner track - quite flat, basically no hazards (unless you're stupid enough to drive into the water and drown yourself), pretty easy to get ahead with my fast character.
Oh, except for this. At one point in the lap, there's a pirate ship in the water which has a bridge leading to it. You might think that's a shortcut, but nope, it's a dead end and it put me in last place. Total beginner's trap, and I had to restart the race. And I can't be sure, but I think that's Cortex's head on the sail! Personally, I'm getting tired of Cortex's cheating. Blasting opponents' cars with electricity, putting fake pirate ships on the tracks... Cortex, you Magnificent Bastard.
Other than that, it was dead easy and I came in first the first time I tried it after the pirate ship. Thankfully, the turns are quite wide, so Rasta can easily handle them, and so far, I'm enjoying the game. It feels fast, which is what you really want in a racing game, and the graphics and sound are pretty good for 64-bit (I particularly enjoy Cortex's shout of "The trophy's miiiine!", although I'm a bit confused as to why a polar bear is barking like a dog). One thing I can't ignore, though, is some striking similarities to Mario Kart. I got 5 different power-ups during the race, and nearly all of them correspond to things from Mario Kart:
Missile = Red Shell (tracks a player and makes them crash when it hits them) Bomb = Green Shell (travels in a straight line and makes people crash when they get hit, the difference is it doesn't bounce off walls) Potion = Banana Peel (lay it on the track, players spin out when they hit it) Weird disco ball floating orb thing = Blue Shell (hits the player in first place) TNT Crate = Actually unique (gets stuck on someone's head and you have to jump to get it off, or it explodes)
The difference, by the way, is that in this game, when you've collected 10 Wumpa Fruit, your power-up becomes more powerful and you drive faster. Luckily, for a beginner track, Wumpa Fruit are in plentiful supply and the opponents don't seem able to use the disco ball. Thank God.
So, I win that one. Crash comes in second (fair enough, it's his track) and Polar comes in third. When he loses, Crash sleeps like in the opening, and Polar lies down on his stomach, just like my dog does when he's upset. News to the developers: polar bear =/= shih tzu. Rasta's win pose is jumping and roaring. Actually, scratch what I said earlier, I don't need Polar to roar. Rasta's got that covered pretty well. Oh, by the way, I can't ignore this - during the award ceremony, the trophy girl gets right in the camera's face, and we get Jiggle Physics from 64-bit bandicoot boobs! Which, being a lonely nerd, I'll take. Cortex must've been lonely as well, and engineered the trophy girls for some... entertainment.
I win a trophy! And another Uka Uka tutorial on how Wumpa Fruit works! Yaaaaay!
Roo's Tubes
Just by the name, I can tell this is the track where I'm going to race Ripper Roo later. Anyway, this is our designated "underwater" track. Just to match up tracks with Mario Kart 64, which I'll run throughout this liveblog:
Crash Cove = Koopa Troopa Beach Roo's Tubes = N/A
This one doesn't have any shortcuts (in Crash Cove, you could get a shortcut by using a boost to get on a sort of cliff thing and driving over it to cut a corner) and there's pretty much no obstacles, so it's even easier than the last one, especially since I get a boost at the start, and there's more hills that you can get a jump boost off. In fact, I actually went so fast at one of the hills that I clipped the track and Rasta's head went through the ceiling! I don't know what it's like having your head stuck into an endless black void, but I can't imagine it's very nice, given the roar he let out almost immediately afterwards.
Also, this must be pointed out - most of the track is an underwater tube, but just before the finish line you're in a sandy area, with a tunnel made of some sort of giant ribcage. Yeah, because you see so many underwater sandy tunnels with ceilings made of the ribcage of a Seismosaurus in real life.
Well, I win with no effort. Cortex second, Coco third, bandicoot boobs, second Trophy, irritating tutorial. Cortex cries when he loses, so I shall take this game as the start of his Villain Decay. If Ripper Roo's track is that easy, I should take him down in no time. Back to the asylum with ye! ...Next time!
