Nitros Oxide

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

- Nitros Oxide

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 was in Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2.

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 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 wound up in a grotesque 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. 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 Team Racing: Nitro Fueled
Nitros Oxide is also set to return in the remake, now made a playable character with the same stats as Coco and N. Gin. He can be unlocked from the start by pre-ordering the Nitros Oxide Edition of the game along with a special skin. 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 forementioned playability. Oxide's signature hovercraft can also be unlocked and piloted by any character.

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 3: 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, probably flying back to Gasmoxia.

Crash Nitro Kart
Later, he was seen in Crash Nitro Kart racing for Emperor Velo the 27th on Team Oxide, alongside Zem, Zam and Velo himself. After a unicycle accident on Gasmoxia, Oxide returned to get revenge on Crash and his friends, bringing his allies Zam and Zem into the fray. 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. Oxide's head is also more narrow in this appearance.

Stats
Speed: 4/7 Acceleration: 4/7 Turning: 4/7 Difficulty: Intermediate

Crash Twinsanity


In Crash 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. He appears to have two different shades of green on his skin and his snout is longer and has bumps on it.

Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D
Oxide is one of the main antagonists along with Dr. Cortex and Ripper Roo in Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D as well as a playable character by unlocking him. Even though his icon looks like his CTR 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.

Appearances

 * Crash Team Racing
 * Crash Bash
 * Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex (cameo)
 * Crash Nitro Kart
 * Crash Twinsanity (cameo)
 * Crash Nitro Kart 2
 * Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D
 * Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled

Appearance
Nitros Oxide is a green alien who seems to resemble a mantis. Nitros is very tall and has a skinny, droopy mouth with a large head with yellow stripes and orange parts on his sides. He has 2 pairs of legs totaling to four and usually wears a purple suit with big sleeves.

Personality
Nitros Oxide, although very brave, is a very sore loser and has a short temper. He aligns himself with most of the other aliens and he is the fastest racer in the galaxy. Like other villains in the Crash Bandicoot series he also has a strong interest in world domination. He has an obsessive love for speed, explaining why he deserves to rule Earth for his fabulous talent of racing. Although his age is unknown, he hints after his second defeat in CTR that his slowness is due to his old age. 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 a man of his word as he left the Earth in peace without argument after he is beaten by the player character. He competes once more against the racers of Earth in CNK along with Zam and Zem, demonstrating that he is not a quitter and does not always work alone.

Gallery
See: Nitros Oxide/Gallery

Trivia
His theme when fighting him in Crash Bash is a mix of Dingodile's theme from Crash Bandicoot: Warped.
 * In Crash Team Racing, his name is Nitros Oxide, while in Crash Nitro Kart, his name is misspelled as Nitrous Oxide, with an extra 'u'.
 * According to scrapped 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 CTR, 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.
 * His name is a pun on nitrous oxide, which fittingly, 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.
 * If the player uses the CTR language glitch, his head is changed to Papu Papu's.
 * Attacking Nitros Oxide in Crash Team Racing, whilst in Adventure mode, instead of his kart flipping like any other character's kart, will make him spin around in circles, but if he is hit with a bubble shield or with Aku Aku or Uka Uka (using cheats) or if a TNT crate explodes on him, he will bounce up and down.
 * Except by unlocking him with cheat codes in CTR, Oxide's victory podium animation is never seen in the game.
 * If Oxide is unlocked via Gameshark code, the player will find that he has Uka Uka as his patron 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 another evil scientist with a more standard 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.
 * During the introduction cutscene in the original version of CTR, Oxide claims that he will make the Earth's population his slaves, while in the Nitro-Fueled remake, he claims that he will make them his minions. The reason behind this is unknown.

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