App review: Crash Bandicoot: Nitro Kart 3D for iPhone

You might remember Crash Bandicoot; that hugely annoying Sonic the Hedgehog clone who dragged his sorry tail across many formats in the 90’s. And, true to form, the updated version of this Mario Kart clone, originally released a year ago before we were covering iPhone games, looks equally impressive on the latest OS.    

Nitro Kart may itself be an update of Nintendo’s classic Mario Kart, but it works a lot better on the iPhone, squeezing an impressive amount into a 7MB download. For a start there’s 12 levels of dayglo racing action divided up between the various cups you can compete for.

After a step by step tutorial, you’ll be racing round courses in no time, each featuring a pleasing variety of speed zippers, jumps and tight turns that require judicious use of drifts, jumps or powerslides.

There are also weapons to be picked up and tropical fruits that spell out ‘Crash’; collect them all in order to unlock further bonuses or upgrades.

Gripping the iPhone like a miniature steering wheel, Nitro Kart makes excellent use of the iPhones tilt functionality and motion sensing for surprisingly accurate driving. With the jump function and weapons activated with your thumbs, you’ll soon be haring round tracks picking the best moment or turn to off one of your 4 opponents.

On the negative side, the absence of a networked multiplayer mode feels like a missed opportunity, and those who prefer total racing control will be disappointed to find that the cars accelerate automatically. Undoubtedly, both these are deliberate decisions by the developer, although quite what their reasoning was seems far from certain.

However, with excellent sound and graphics, responsive handling and plenty of levels and cups to keep you going, Crash Bandicoot effortlessly races to the top of the race genre on the iPhone.

How long it can stay there depends on what genre the developers choose to rip off next, but as long as they do it this well, there’s little to complain about.

Price: £3.49

Overall verdict: 7/10

Written by Mike Anderiesz.

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