[4] The game's story centers on the abduction of Crash Bandicoot, along with other characters in the series, by the ruthless dictator Emperor Velo XXVII.

The primary console version received mixed reviews, with many critics deeming it inferior to its predecessor Crash Team Racing, but praising the game's presentation.

While racing, the player can accelerate, steer, reverse, brake, hop or use weapons and power-ups with the game controller's analog stick and buttons.

Tiny Tiger, Doctor Cortex's most faithful henchman, is a hulking giant who pilots a kart with a high top speed like Crunch.

[13] His henchmen, Zam and Zem, become accessible as playable characters if the player wins the Purple and Green Gem in Adventure Mode respectively.

[13] Dingodile and Polar, whom N. Trance has hypnotized, becomes accessible as playable characters if the player wins the Red and Blue Gem in Adventure Mode respectively.

Pura, whom Trance has also hypnotized, becomes accessible as a playable character if the player performs 50 consecutive speed boosts on any track in Adventure Mode as a member of Team Bandicoot.

Velo is the final boss character of the game and races alongside two advisors who lay down offensive measures to slow the player down.

In order, the bosses consist of the following: Krunk, a hulking creature who feels that Earth is a copy of his home planet, Terra, and races to prove which planet is superior; Nash, a genetically engineered shark-like creature who was created to always move; Norm, a goblin-like mime who races alongside a larger and more obnoxious version of himself; and Geary, a robot as much obsessed with perfection as he is with cleaning.

[20][21] Velo loses again to the Earth racers and literally explodes in a bout of fury, revealing himself to be a robot suit controlled by a small gremlin-like version of himself.

The in-game versions of the character models were built using 3ds Max and were outfitted with full inverse kinematic setups, morph targets and UV texture maps by Vicarious Visions.

[4] Given the task of forming the personalities of the Crash Nitro Kart cast through the full-motion videos, the Red Eye Studio artists set certain rules for how each character would carry itself by default.

As animator Thomas Happ noted, "N. Gin, for example, would always default to twitchy, side-to-side glances, while Tiny would often scratch his head in confusion.

To achieve the bold and deeply saturated colors and textures for the characters and environments, the artists used Maya as well as Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter.

While the artists adapted many of the sets and props in the cinematics from in-game counterparts, they recreated the majority of these objects from scratch in order to add surrealism to the scenery.

[38] The soundtrack of the game was composed by Ashif Hakik and Todd Masten of Womb Music, while the sound design was created by New Media Audio, a subsidiary of Technicolor Creative Services.

[41] The voice cast of the game consists of Clancy Brown as Doctor Neo Cortex and Uka Uka, Mel Winkler as Aku Aku, Kevin Michael Richardson as Crunch Bandicoot and an advisor of Velo, Debi Derryberry as Coco Bandicoot and Polar, Steven Blum as Emperor Velo XXVII and Crash Bandicoot, Billy West as Nash and Zam, Dwight Schultz as Dingodile and Fake Crash, Marshall R. Teague as Krunk, John DiMaggio as Tiny Tiger, Michael Ensign as Doctor Nefarious Tropy, Quinton Flynn as Doctor N. Gin and Nitrous Oxide, André Sogliuzzo as Norm and Zem, Paul Greenberg as Geary and Pura and Tom Bourdon as N. Trance and an advisor of Velo.

[51] PlayStation: The Official Magazine said that Crash Nitro Kart was "satisfying and challenging at the same time" and "a great way to fill that need for speed.

[66] Official PlayStation Magazine concluded that "Vicarious Visions did all it could to emulate the Naughty Dog classic (Crash Team Racing) and just added a PS2 coat of paint.

"[73] Ryan Davis of GameSpot stated that while the powerslide system "can give you a serious advantage in the race ... [it] is also very difficult to pull off, requiring flawless timing.

"[53][54][55] Steven Rodriquez of Nintendo World Report said that the karts "control pretty nicely, but can be hard to handle consistently at top speed," and added that power sliding was "easy to do".

"[48] Steven Rodriquez of Nintendo World Report noted that "if you've played any of the other Crash Bandicoot games out there, then you have a pretty good idea what this one looks like.

"[68] Russ Fischer of GameSpy said that the game "some nice graphics, which use a solid framerate and loads of color to capture the old Crash magic.

Manny LaMancha of GamePro said that the in-game voice acting (provided by such stars as Debi Derryberry and Billy West) was "clear and entertaining".

[53][54][55] Ed Lewis of IGN said that the "saving grace" of the "Looney Tunes-style repartee and sound effects" is that "it was done professionally and while it's pretty silly if you listen to it, it doesn't grate and get under the skin as other games can."

[63][64][65] Steven Rodriguez of Nintendo World Report described the music and sound effects as "generic" and "plain" respectively, and noted that the best part of the game's audio was "that sexy talking mask that gives you advice between races, but even he gets rather annoying.

[42] Frank Provo of GameSpot stated that "the characters aren't nearly as popular as those in Nintendo's Mario Kart game, but the deeper gameplay makes up for that to an extent.

"[52] Craig Harris of IGN criticized the patches of slowdown in the game, but thought that otherwise it "would be a close contender for best kart racer on the handheld.

[46] Levi Buchanan of IGN, in a positive review, praised the game's large selection of characters, tracks and gameplay modes.

"[60] Justin Leeper of GameSpy criticized the chuggy framerate and tunnel vision of the screen and delivered a final message of "If the N-Gage library was a classroom, then Crash Nitro Kart would be the cross-eyed kid who eats paste and thinks the answer to every math problem is 'cat'".