While not as polished or fun as Mario Kart, I admired the adventure mode in this game, which takes a leaf out of the always underappreciated Diddy Kong Racing's book with its hub world and unique challenges, including some appreciated freedom as to which to tackle first. I also admired the turbo system, which takes some mastery and works very differently than the Mario Kart template (relying on timing and button inputs rather than the stick toggling of old or automatic ease of new Mario Karts). Crash Team Racing is not a pushover, and will require some real mastery of its systems to get through its single-player offerings (since you will have to get first in each race to continue). Of course, there are also multi-player options, which are fun but since the game has a steeper competitive learning curve than other kart racers it probably works best between veterans of comparable skill levels.