Crash Tag Team Racing

Crash Tag Team Racing was the third racing game to feature Crash Bandicoot, and was released on the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox and PSP in 2005.

Gameplay
The gameplay of this game is very different from CTR/CNK. This game's main highlight is the ability to merge two cars. As a result, one of the players shoots other cars while the other drives. Also, it is possible to       explore the MotorWorld in adventure mode. While exploring the MotorWorld, Crash travels on foot and can do jobs for all the characters listed below. He can go to each section of the MotorWorld and collect Wumpa Coins (not Wumpa Fruit) to buy outfits or crystals from Park Drones. When Crash collects enough Crystals he can unlock the Jump Pad leading to a Power Gem and unlocking the next area of the park.

Characters
There are 11 major characters in the game, with 8 out of them playable. The major characters are:
 * Crash Bandicoot - More immature than before, enjoys torturing other people and creatures, especially chickens. He is trying to find the Power Gems in order to prevent Cortex from making a new base in the park.
 * Doctor Neo Cortex - Even shorter, he is trying to find the Power Gems in order to own the park and make a new base.
 * Coco Bandicoot - She is depicted more preppy and a bit of a "daddy's little girl" tendencies.
 * Nina Cortex - More Gothic, she likes violence and sadness and also, like Crash, acts a bit immature at times. She never talks in the cutscenes.
 * Crunch Bandicoot - Now has a personality very similar to Mr. T, including the Mr. Crunch costume.
 * Doctor N. Gin - Now he has a gray skin and black hair. Now he seems to be masochist and a little effeminate.
 * Pasadena O'Possum - A country girl who is loyal to Von Clutch.
 * Ebenezer Von Clutch - A German-accented cyborg. He lost his Black Heart Power Gem (a gem that acts as a heart to him) and now proposes a challenge: whoever finds his gem, will be the new owner of his park.
 * Willie Wumpa Cheeks - The Von Clutch mascot. Without anyone knowing, he was the one who stole Von Clutch's gem and escaped to Astro Land.
 * Chick Gizzard Lips - The chicken commentator who talks the most in his reports. He acts as serious as a human reporter.
 * Stew - Chick's co-commentator. He also keeps changing his hair or hat. He acts a little crazy in the cutscenes, saying wrong things at the wrong times.

Characters and Vehicles

 * See also: Cars in Crash Tag Team Racing

Story
Ebenezer Von Clutch, a German-accented cyborg, has created a highly dangerous racing theme park. However, the park's Power Gems and Von Clutch's Black Heart Power Gem have been stolen. He sets up a special event for his park in which anybody who finds his Black Heart Power Gem acquires the new ownership of his park, but nobody is interested, except for Pasadena O' Possum. During the last day that Von Clutch can keep on functioning without his Black Heart Power Gem, Doctor Neo Cortex, N. Gin, and Nina are chasing Crash, Coco, and Crunch Bandicoot near a roadway that leads to Von Clutch's MotorWorld. They crash through the gates of the MotorWorld, and Von Clutch persuades them to enter. At first, Von Clutch's proposal did not catch the Bandicoots' attention, but when Cortex decides to help just so he could acquire a new base for planning schemes to crush the Bandicoots, Crash, Coco, and Crunch have no choice but to find the Black Power Gem before Cortex and his companions do. At first, they must find the Power Gems needed to power other sections of the MotorWorld and one by one. Having entered the park, Crash sees the first gem on a statue gaining him access to the Mystery Island. There he's finds the second gem on a small pillar, with perfect timing he swaps it with a small bag then proceeding to Happily Ever Faster. The third gem is guarded by a park employee dressed as a princess trapped in a tower, Crash tugs on his wig and the employee falls tower unconscious allowing Crash to take the gem and go to Tyrannosaurus Wrecks. Seeing a cow drop in from nowhere and press itself against the ledges, Crash used it as a bridge to get the fourth gem and move on to Tomb Town. Crash sees the fifth gem in the nose of an Egyptian Von Clutch statue, he press a near by button which shakes the statue releasing the gem, having picked it up Crash heads for Astro Land.

Back at park, Cortex enters the scene with bandages on his head shouting in frustration, "Curses, some sinister force is upstaging my evil plan. Curses! Curses! CURSES!!" Coco finds a link between all the stolen Power Gems in which there was a trail of Wumpa Whip at the scene of every stolen Power Gem. Crash is drinking Wumpa Whip at the time, so everyone blames him regardless of the fact that he found the other gems in the first place. Willie Wumpa Cheeks gets out of frustration for their stupidity, then gives himself up and turns out that he is the perpetrator, but at first, nobody believed him (except Von Clutch who went into denial) until he revealed the Black Gem in his bag before running off towards Astro Land, indicating that Crash is innocent.

Crash soon finds him about to blast off with the Black Gem in a rocket (which is actually a Rocket Simulator attraction) and pulls a lever to stop it from supposedly taking off. Crunch picks Willie up by his nose and Pasadena demands that Willie return the Power Gem, but Willie refuses. Cortex then shoots Willie from a simple flying machine, turning him into a blob, and then targets the Bandicoots and fires the trigger, but Crunch pulls up a piece of metal from the ground to block the shots. Then Crash throws a chicken into the motor of the machine, causing it to fly out of control and off the MotorWorld. The Bandicoots are given the park's ownership as the reward but Coco decides to return it to Von Clutch, only to learn that he had stopped functioning. Pasadena put her hands on Von Clutch's back, making two doors open in his chest. Meanwhile, Crash is drinking some Wumpa Whip from Willie's nose and accidentally gulps something. He coughs up the Black Gem, which somewhat lands conveniently inside Von Clutch. He comes back to life and starts singing, giving unlimited free passes to the MotorWorld to the Bandicoots from then on. Von Clutch pats Crash on the back numerous times. Crash then pats him on the back and the gem falls out of Von Clutch's body. He then rushes back to the car he had at the beginning, smiles and drives away by himself before anyone could take action against him, leaving Coco and Crunch standing there. Coco then slaps her head while Crunch shrugs at a shocked Pasadena.

Mystery Island

 * Tiki Turbo
 * Pirates of the Carburetor
 * Deep Sea Driving

Happily Ever Faster

 * Once Upon a Tire
 * Track and the Beanstalk
 * Evilocity

Tyrannosaurus Wrecks

 * Fossil Fuel Injection
 * La Brea Car Pits
 * Tire and Ice

Tomb Town

 * Dead Heat
 * Crash Test Mummies
 * Pyramid Pass

Astro Land

 * Rings of Uranus
 * Uranus' Mine
 * Craters on Uranus

Battle

 * Jungle Rumble (Mystery Island)
 * The Tragic Kingdom (PSP only; can be aquired on the PlayStation 2 via PSP/PS2 connection)
 * Exctinction Party(Tyrannosaurus Wrecks)
 * Fight Like an Egyptian (PSP only; can be aquired on the PlayStation 2 via PSP/PS2 connection)

Stunt

 * Hardly Ever Land (Happily Ever Faster)
 * Space Stunts (Astro Land)

Trivia

 * In each track of the game, the music changes after two-thrids of the race. Each track has a final lap for racing in 1st & 2nd place, racing from 3rd to 5th place and racing in 6th to 8th place.
 * In Crash of the Titans, Tiny Tiger complains that he wasn't invited to Crash Tag Team Racing. Chronologically, however, he could be referring to any game he wasn't in (besides the first). ("...frankly, I'm still mad about the 'last game'. You didn't even invite me!"
 * In one cutscene, Von Clutch breaks the fourth wall by telling the Bandicoots, Cortex, N.Gin and Nina, "I have all your games!" They just look at each other, confused.
 * From here on out, Crash now "talks" through gibberish noises, courtesy of Jess Harnell, who was also Lo-Lo in Wrath of Cortex and, ironically, Spyro in games such as Spyro: A Hero's Tail.
 * Remixes of Crash Twinsanity can be heard at certain times in this game.
 * Around the time the music in Happily Ever Faster ends
 * During Tomb Town
 * "Critter Clobber" mini-game
 * Ending cutscene "I Hate Chicken"
 * Credits
 * This would ironically be one of the last few games to be released in Japan.
 * A Japanese model of Crash was made for their release. He still does the infamous Crash Dance, whenever standing still in adventure mode or in a race.
 * This is the only game since Crunch joined the Bandicoots that neither Crash or Coco were captured or frozen in anyway.
 * This game is the only game made by Radical which doesn't involve jacking and Titans.
 * Enabling the Japanese Crash cheat code will cause the original Crash to have minor glitches like: Crash's pupils float above his head and his shadow shows him in the "T" position sticking his arms out.(the "T" position is a pose that 3D character models stand in when they have not been given any movements to perform.)
 * One exclusive car for 5 characters (Crash, Cortex, Pasadena, Crunch, and Nina) and 2 extra battle arenas can be unlocked by connecting the PSP version to the PS2 version. The Tragic Kingdom battle arena played on the PS2 plays music recycled from Twinsanity, "Rooftop Rampage".
 * Like in Twinsanity, the music was made by the acappella band Spiralmouth, but this time with Radical's songwriter, Marc Baril.
 * This game was planned to be ported onto the DS, but it was cancelled.
 * This game would be quite ironic since each of the levels are based on Crash's past adventures and the fact that the park is run by a Crash Bandicoot enthusiast. It seems that Radical wanted to bring the new Crash into the Naughty Dog era, as there were also statues of the original Dr. Cortex in the Tomb Town level.
 * Error: When Willie gives himself away, he's standing next to Nina. But when he tries convince everyone he's the culprit, he's standing in front of them. In the same scene, Coco is nowhere to be found.
 * Many of the game's vehicles were re-used in Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D and Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2. Also, one of Crash's cars, the Crikey, greatly resembles the Jeep from Wrath of Cortex.
 * Aku Aku makes a cameo appearance in one section of Tiki Turbo. When you pass through this section, the sound that plays in the first few games when an Aku Aku Mask is collected can be heard.
 * In this game, the spelling of N. Gin's name has changed to N-Gin.
 * One of the things that Coco may say if damaged during a race is, "Aw, derriberries!" This is a reference to Debi Derriberry, who has done Coco's voice ever since Wrath of Cortex.
 * The clashing feature bears a strong resemblance to Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, as in this game, two characters occupy the same vehicle.
 * This was the first Crash game to have elements named after Wumpa Fruit, but not include them as a collectible directly. It was also the first racing game to have a shortcut on every track (except Rings Of Uranus) and to not have four-player split-screen.
 * The ticking sounds for the Wumpa Whip timer were reused in Crash of the Titans for the Mojo Multiplier.
 * Pasadena shows evidence of a possible romantic interest in Crash in some of her vehicle mission clips. However, whenever she mentions the possibility of kissing, Crash makes a "vomitting" gesture, although some parts of the game reveals Crash acting like a dog showing that Crash may actually have feelings toward her.
 * The Nega Crash outfit is based off Evil Crash from Twinsanity.

Reception
Crash Tag Team Racing has received mixed to average reviews. GameSpot said that "the racing isn't exactly the star of the show, but the game's supplemental elements pull the whole thing together into a unique and mostly enjoyable experience"; however, they criticized the PSP version because its loading times were "painful".