Nitros Oxide

"Get ready to race for the fate of your planet!"

- Nitros Oxide

 (Nitrous Oxide in Crash Nitro Kart, or N. Oxide or simply Oxide) is an alien from the planet Gasmoxia who serves as the main antagonist of Crash Team Racing. He first appeared in Crash Team Racing, and his latest appearance is in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time as a minor character.

Crash Team Racing
"Greetings, creatures of this planet, I've come to compete. So you pesky Earth-slugs like to race, eh, hehehehe. Well I, Nitros Oxide, am the fastest racer in the galaxy. I travel the stars looking for creatures to test my skills. It's a little game I call Survival of the Fastest. Here's the way we play: I challenge the best driver of your world to a race for the planet. If your driver wins I'll leave your miserable little rock alone. But if I win I'll turn your entire globe into a concrete parking lot and make you my slaves. HAHAHAHAHAHA! Get ready to race for the fate of your planet!"

- Nitros Oxide Nitros Oxide was first seen in Crash Team Racing when he came to Earth to challenge the planet's people to a racing contest he called "Survival of the Fastest". He said that if Earth's inhabitants won the contest then he would leave Earth alone, but if he won he would turn Earth into a giant concrete parking lot and enslave the inhabitants of the planet. Earth's champion racer (who could be one of the following chosen characters: Crash Bandicoot, Doctor Neo Cortex, Tiny Tiger, Coco Bandicoot, Doctor N. Gin, Dingodile, Polar or Pura) was able to defeat Oxide and then again after collecting the time relics. He went back to Gasmoxia in shame. As stated in the credits, after years of therapy, Nitros Oxide began to race again, but he chose the unicycle as a vehicle and apparently wound up in a gruesome accident. His hovercraft is neon green. During his boss fight, he has an infinite supply of weapons, using all of the weapons used by the previous three bosses (Papu Papu, Komodo Joe, and Pinstripe). He also appears in Time Trial mode as a staff ghost character that can be challenged after beating Doctor Nefarious Tropy's ghost on any given track. Beating the Oxide ghost will mark the track with a platinum star on the track select screen for Time Trial. Getting platinum stars on all 18 tracks will unlock the ability to view the Naughty Dog scrapbook from the main menu at any time.

Crash Bash
In Crash Bash, he appeared again as the final boss. He was on his way home to Gasmoxia until running into this planet, and noticing Crash and his friends. He fights the player in his space craft during a chase section, and then lands on a world that much looked like the futuristic levels of Crash Bandicoot: Warped, in which you must stop him in a challenge like the Ballistix levels. He is much more violent in this appearance, attempting to outright destroy his opponents rather than simply outrace them.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
When the logos are shown at the start of the game, he is seen flying through space, possibly flying back to Gasmoxia.

Crash Nitro Kart
Later, he was seen in Crash Nitro Kart racing for Emperor Velo XXVII on Team Oxide, alongside Zem, Zam and Velo himself. Oxide returned to get revenge on Crash and his friends, bringing his allies Zam and Zem into the fray. It's implied that Oxide may have been the one who informed Velo of Earth's racing prowess in his pursuit of vengeance. This was his first official playable appearance. Strangely whenever he is on the trophy podium when he wins, he dances with a cane while wearing a top hat, similar to Ripper Roo.

Crash Twinsanity
In Twinsanity, he appears as a cameo, and is one of the villains at Crash's "birthday party", arriving in his hovercraft from Crash Team Racing.

Crash Nitro Kart 2
Oxide reappears as the main antagonist of Crash Nitro Kart 2. In this game, Oxide is once again attempting to turn the planet into a concrete parking lot, now with Cortex and Ripper Roo backing him up. The first step of his plan is to destroy the bamboo forests, which happen to be the home of Yaya Panda. He is raced against in a few missions throughout mission mode, and is later defeated by Crash in the final boss race. He can be unlocked as playable by completing Sudden Death mode, and has the highest stats in the game.

Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D
Oxide is one of the main antagonists along with Dr. Cortex and Ripper Roo in CBNK3D as well as a playable character by unlocking him. Even though his icon looks like his Crash Team Racing icon, the design of Oxide has drastically changed in appearance as he doesn't wear any clothes and the head is modeled to look more narrow.

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
Nitros Oxide returns in the remake, now as a playable character. He is unlocked from the start in the Nitros Oxide Edition of the game along with a special skin. Like all other bosses, Oxide will be unlocked upon his defeat. The size of Oxide appears to have been reduced compared to the original game and he now drives his hovercraft with a steering wheel instead of joysticks. These changes were made because of his aforementioned playability. Oxide's signature hovercraft can also be unlocked and piloted by any character, though its signature green paint job is only available after getting one-hundred percent completion. During his boss fight, Oxide will now suffer the full effect of stronger items such as Nitro Crates, Bowling Bombs and Missiles, rather only being sent spinning for a short duration. He also uses the Velo Mask now (added later on in a patch) instead of Uka Uka.

In the Gasmoxian Grand Prix, Oxide hacks into CTR TV's broadcast to deliver information about the Grand Prix instead of Chick and Stew. He is also responsible for inviting Emperor Velo XXVII (robot form) to the roster.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
Oxide reappears in It's About Time, having a minor role in a mainline game's story for the first time. He is only seen in-person once, in his first appearance at the beginning of the level Out for Launch. There he sits at a control panel on his ship, under the command of N. Tropy and N. Tropy (F). N. Tropy (F) orders Oxide to take his ship to Bermugula and keep an eye out for intruders, which he tries and later fails to obey.

His voice can be heard over the loudspeakers at the end of the level Shipping Error and throughout the level Stowing Away, ordering his minions around and lamenting the theft of his kart by Tawna. At one point he reveals that he is married to an unnamed wife. After Crash and Coco find Oxide's spare kart and steal it to flee the doomed ship and crash land on Bermugula, Oxide is left behind and disappears from the story until the 100% epilogue.

In the 100% epilogue, Oxide develops a caffeine addiction in his desperate longing for speed outside of racing. As a famous kart racer he was being hired as a spokesperson for a popular energy drink, but ended up in rehab for his addiction and in a messy divorce with his wife.

Personality
Nitros Oxide is a braggart and sore loser with a short temper. He also has an obsession with speed. He aligns himself with most of the other aliens and claims to be the fastest racer in the galaxy. Like other villains in the Crash Bandicoot series, he also has an interest in world domination. As shown in the final race against him in CTR, he is not above cheating and playing dishonourably, proven as he starts racing before the countdown and uses otherwise impossible combinations of items. Despite his bad temper and tendency to cheat, he is an alien of his word, leaving the Earth in peace once beaten by the player character. He competes once more against the racers of Earth in Nitro Kart along with Zam and Zem, demonstrating that he is not a quitter and does not always work alone.

Physical Appearance
Nitros Oxide is a green alien who seems to resemble a mantis. He is very tall and has a skinny, droopy, elephant-like trunk with yellow stripes across it. His mouth is at the end of his trunk, with sharp, pointy teeth and darker green lips. He has a large head with yellow stripes going up from the tops of his eyes (slightly resembling the carapace of a green June beetle), and yellow-orange sacs on the sides of his head. He has black eyes with yellow scleras, red-orange eyebags and thick dark brown eyebrows. He is a cyborg, having some sort of engine attached to his back with exhaust pipes coming out of the back of his head. He wears a strange purple suit which has a popped collar, an odd orb attached to the chest, large chunky cuffs, and no legs, revealing that he has two pairs of legs. Although his exact age is unknown, he blames his second defeat in Crash Team Racing on his old age.

In Crash Bash, the exhaust pipes on his head are much longer, being visible from the front.

In Wrath of Cortex, his cuffs are incorrectly coloured the same as his skin, making him appear to have very fat forearms. His face also has much chubbier cheeks, his trunk is smaller and his lips are lighter in colour.

In Crash Nitro Kart, his head is thinner and has only one exhaust pipe coming out of it. His neck is also much longer and thinner, and the yellow markings go along the sides of his head rather than the top.

His Twinsanity appearance is heavily based on that of Nitro Kart, but his trunk is now light green with thin dark green stripes and the sacs on his head are now yellow.

His Nitro-Fueled appearance is mostly the same as Crash Team Racing, but his pupils are now red and the stripes on his trunk are much more subtle.

Crash Team Racing
“N. Oxide is the galaxy’s champion kart racer. Whoever wins the main competition must really burn rubber in the tough final race to beat him, and stop his wacky plan of turning the whole planet into a concrete parking lot.”
 * Manual

Crash Nitro Kart
“Still bitter over previous losses to Crash and his friends, Oxide is going to do everything he can to make sure that Crash loses this time. He’s brought along his cronies Zam and Zem to help him out as well.”
 * Manual

Crash Nitro Kart 2
“This alien moves at the speed of light, but he's slow on acceleration.”
 * In-Game

Appearances

 * Crash Team Racing
 * Crash Bash
 * Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex (cameo)
 * Crash Nitro Kart
 * Crash Bandicoot & Spyro Adventure World (cameo on code card)
 * Crash Twinsanity (cameo)
 * Crash Nitro Kart 2
 * Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D
 * Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
 * Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled Digital Comic
 * Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
 * Crash Bandicoot: On the Run!

Earth's Champion
(Earth's Champion is the character you choose to play as in CTR's adventure mode, meaning it could be one of the following characters: Crash Bandicoot, Neo Cortex, Tiny Tiger, Coco Bandicoot, N. Gin, Dingodile, Polar or Pura.) Nitros Oxide naturally has an intense rivalry with Earth's Champion as they race to prevent Oxide from completing his plan of global destruction. Oxide develops an intense hatred for Earth in general as a result of the Champion succeeding in defeating him, which briefly drives him away from the racing scene until he decides to get Velo involved for his revenge years later.

Zem and Zam
Zem and Zam are Nitros Oxide's henchmen, and are the other two primary members of Team Oxide alongside Oxide himself. Though Oxide seems to prefer to work alone, as seen in CTR and Crash Bash, he gets Zem and Zam to assist him in Crash Nitro Kart, likely due to a racing team being required for those racing in the galaxy circuit. Zem and Zam are very loyal to Oxide when Oxide calls on them, and hold respect for him and his accomplishments, shown in the Nitro-Fueled comic.

Emperor Velo XXVII
Oxide is a member of Velo's imperial court and is also the leader of Team Oxide, which is one of Velo's racing teams in Crash Nitro Kart. Nitros Oxide happily races for Velo throughout the game, and it's implied that Oxide informed Velo of Earth's racing talent in order to get revenge for his defeat in Crash Team Racing. Velo seems close with Oxide, choosing to join Team Oxide when racing in his true form after being unlocked as playable. Oxide is also the one who invited Emperor Velo to join the race in Nitro-Fueled during the Gasmoxia Grand Prix.

Gallery
See: Nitros Oxide/Gallery

Trivia

 * His name is a pun on nitrous oxide, which is used as an oxidizer gas in combustion engine systems, resulting in sudden bursts of speed upon "spraying". It is also known as "laughing gas" in medical application.
 * In Crash Nitro Kart, his name is misspelled as Nitrous Oxide.
 * According to unused dialogue, Oxide is the reason why there's no life on Mars. He raced against the inhabitants of Mars before he raced Earth and Mars lost, leaving it as a desolate, barren planet.
 * Oxide uses the weapons of the previous race bosses in Crash Team Racing, except Ripper Roo's: he uses Papu Papu's green and red beakers, Komodo Joe's TNT/Nitro Crates, and Pinstripe's Bombs (shot backwards). He shoots crates and beakers in pairs. His cheating personality shows when he starts moving before the signal.
 * Attacking Nitros Oxide in Crash Team Racing, whilst in Adventure mode, will make him spin around in circles, unless he is hit with a bubble shield or with Aku Aku or Uka Uka (using cheats) or if a TNT crate explodes on him, where he will bounce up and down.
 * If Oxide is unlocked via Gameshark code, the player will find that he has Uka Uka as his Invincibility Mask.
 * Oxide was originally intended to be playable in Crash Team Racing but was ultimately scrapped due to technical limitations. Unused dialogue still remains from when he was intended to be playable.
 * Oxide was originally designed as an evil scientist with a more human appearance. During development, the story was that he was trying to make the world faster and faster until the end of time, because of his obsession with speed. While further details about the original story are scarce, an old comic suggests Oxide would use a machine called the X Device.
 * In Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, it was revealed that Oxide used to have a wife and eventually divorced in the 100% ending.