Instead of doing like Crash Team Racing, Radical Entertainment give us an open-world platforming and racing game hybrid, on top of having some minigames and driving challenges.
Cars have a stamina system. There's a fusion system with a turret mode, and tracks are designed after that, leading to less interesting designs.
Game is pretty good as a whole package, but sadly pretty barebones in content.
The biggest thing about this game to me is the soundtrack. An "once in a lifetime" deal, however. Marc Baril from Radical's previous gaming working with Spiralmouth from TwinSanity.