Proto:Crash Nitro Kart (PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox)/September 2nd, 2003 build

This is a sub-page of Proto:Crash Nitro Kart (PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox).

  This prototype is documented on Hidden Palace.

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

The September 2nd, 2003 prototype of Crash Nitro Kart is a preview version for Xbox dated two weeks before the earliest North American release version for PlayStation 2 and three weeks before the initial North American release for Xbox. It was released on December 25th, 2024.

Menus Differences

• The controller unplugged notice will also appear while in the menus.
• N. Tropy and Velo ghost times are not set in the menu.

Startup

• The Vivendi Universal logo is smaller.
• There is no fade between the logo splash screens.
• The Intrinsic Alchemy and animated intro sequence can be skipped.

Level Select

• The blue outline covers the entire highlighted track/arena option. In the final game, the tracks up and above the hovered over one overlap it.
• All preview videos are based on earlier versions of the levels.

Character Select

• Characters have no lighting.
• Fake Crash does not chuckle.

Best Times

• The default Relic Race scores are all placeholder times of 9:59:00.
  • Additionally, all tracks will display Crash in the rankings aside from Inferno Island and Jungle Boogie.
• Fake Crash and Velo can be seen in the default scores.

Options

• Some button actions are named differently.
  • "Use Power-up" was renamed to "Power-up".
  • "Brake/Reverse" was shortened to "Brake/Rev.".

Extras

• The credits list is missing some names and roles.
• The menu shows both team cutscenes at the same time. They all are visible even if locked.

Gameplay Differences

• The character ambient lighting is overall darker.
• Velo Mask talks in this version. In the final game, an oversight prevents the audio clips from playing, which was later fixed in the Japanese releases.
• A unique sound effect plays when the traffic lights are spinning (litespin.wav).
• Lap times are misplaced but will correct once the player starts the lap.
• Masks will also comment whenever the CPU racers hit their teammates.
• Characters clips will play even after the race is over - including the masks.
• Shooting stars play a firework explosion sound in Race and Podium.
• The Ice Mine and Static Orb weapons use the default icons when juiced up.
• The ice cube is transparent when the player is hit in Single Player modes.
• Tornado Top has dust particles on the bottom.
• The pink Static Orb has a slower homing speed of 6 instead of 12.
• You do not automatically enter chase mode when launching the Red Eye Missile - rather, you need to press B to manually enter it.
• Bumping into a teammate with a Power Shield or Invincibility Mask active won't make the mask appear around them, despite being immune to them.
• The invincibility themes are quieter.
  • Masks sound effect and invincibility themes are treated as FX instead of voice and music.
• The sava data and controller unplugged notices will disable the music currently playing.
• The screen will not fade to black after falling off the track if the screen has just been flashing with something else.
• Loading transitions do not freeze the latest frame of the gameplay, causing it to show some unintended effects before switching to the loading screen, such as the characters briefly disappear from the map.
• The boost counter seems to be more forgivable, sometimes not resetting right away and giving the player a chance to continue the chain.

Team Race

• There is no marker over the teammate's head.
• The colored outline on the ground surrounding the kart when the team meter is full is white.
• The Team Frenzy meter always fades out when leaving the teammate's range, whether it's full or not.
  • A unique sound effect plays whenever the team meter fades in or fades out (frnzloop.wav).
  • The meter is always blue and changes color to red during the Frenzy, regardless of the team. In the final game, colors are based on the teams (blue for Team Bandicoot, red for Team Cortex, yellow for Team Oxide and green for Team Trance).
  • Team Frenzy activate and ready sound effects are switched (teamup1.wav for ready and teamup2.wav for activate).
  • Team Oxide meter font is purple instead of yellow.
• The teammate icon does not flash when first appearing, neither does the gauge.
• The player icon on the results screen doesn't have a colored outline to match their team color.

Time Trial

To do: Compare N. Tropy and Velo's ghost times.

• The Lap 1 counter in the HUD is erroneously displayed as "L!" in Lap Time Trial mode.
• A portion of the best times ranking is still visible on the left side of the screen after reaching the end-of-race menu.
• There is no warning notice of ghost being too long to save.
• The time requirements to open N. Tropy's ghosts on each track are different:

Level	Sep 2	Final
Inferno Island	2:00:00	2:01:00
Jungle Boogie	2:00:00	2:08:00
Tiny Temple	2:35:00	2:49:00
Meteor Gorge	2:15:00	2:20:00
Barin Ruins	2:25:00	2:46:00
Deep Sea Driving	2:50:00	3:09:00
Out of Time	3:00:00	3:14:00
Clockwork Wumpa	3:15:00	3:09:00
Thunder Struck	3:40:00	3:48:00
Assembly Lane	3:00:00	3:08:00
Android Alley	3:30:00	3:42:00
Electron Avenue	4:30:00	4:28:00
Hyper Spaceway	5:00:00	5:06:00

Multiplayer

• Karts emit smoke from exhaust pipes in 2-player splitscreen. This was disabled in the final game.
• The camera view distance in splitscreen is the same ones as single player modes.
• All race UI elements in 2-player splitscreen have the regular size as the single player HUDs, including fonts, character icons, position numbers, Wumpa counter, and item roulette.
  • The lap counter is located in the top right corner.
  • In free for all mode, the lap counter in player 2's screen is duplicated.
• The race UI in 4-player splitscreen has a layout which resembles that of Crash Team Racing.
  • The Wumpa counter and item roulette elements are arranged differently and are in the regular size.
• The battle HUD lacks the spinning Wumpa fruit graphic.

Adventure Mode

• There are no unlock pop-up messages for cutscenes when returning to hub worlds. Rather, the message prompting to overwrite your save data will appear at the end of the race each time a cutscene is played.
  • This may cause some issues when it comes to unlocking them in the Extras menu, as the message cannot appear at the end of a boss race the first time they are defeated, as their respective cutscenes will play immediately, meaning that if the player decides to leave the game without properly triggering the message in a subsequent race, that particular cutscene will not be unlocked the next time the game is rebooted, as you are required to manually save the data when the message appears.
    • This can also prevent you from unlocking Velo, as his unlock pop-up message will only appear at the end of a race like the other characters, and since it cannot appear after the boss rematch, you'll need to enter any challenge and complete the race in order for his unlock pop-up to appear, otherwise he will remain locked despite already having 100% completion with both teams.
• The warp pad activation sound effect will only play when you get close enough to warp pads, rather than playing from a distance (warpunlk.wav).
• The hub themes do not play properly.
• The gem model is untextured in the HUD.
• Active warp gates feature energy beams coming from the white ball in the middle.
• The pause menu during gameplay lacks the black border and the options are further up.
  • There is no "Accept" button prompt.
• Teammates cannot win trophy races for the player if they finish in first place.
• You can move the kart during key win animation, making it possible to enter the warp gate while it is still locked.
• The game type sub-menu lacks the B button prompt.
• Entering Hyper Spaceway warp pad will open the sub-menu where the only selectable option is "RELIC RACE".
• Entering Hyper Spaceway will play the cutscenes from the Galaxy Championship upon entering and leaving the track.
• The Hyper Spaceway relic does not disappear from the warp pad after collecting it.

Sparky Menu

• There is no Sparky introduction when accessing the pause menu for the first time.
• When playing as Team Bandicoot, the menu option reads "Hints" instead of "Aku Aku Hints".
• Unfilled prize slots are darkened instead of a silhouette.
• Velo's Scepter has different textures.
• Earning Platinum relics will erroneously display them as Gold in the prize slots.
• The switch character screen has cyan box surrounding the stats.
  • Stats can go up to 8 bars, as opposed to 7 - this is just a visual thing, as internally the max number is already 7.
• Earning a Gold relic in Hyper Spaceway will display nothing on its slot.

Velo's Citadel

• The hub world icons are the same as those used in the other hub worlds. In the final Xbox releases, this hub features unique icons that are used universally in the other console releases.
• The environment does not emit any sound effects, such as crowd yells and whistles, and fire crackling from the torches.
• There is no fire on the torches.

Barin

• Deep Sea Driving and Barin Championship locations are swapped.
• Some additional environmental water flow sound effects (watrpipe.wav and watfall1.wav) will play when you are on either side of the dolphin statue monument.

Teknee

• Some environmental sound effects in the enclosed area are missing.

Velo's Vault

• No sound effects are tied to this area due to the lack of the required audio files (hub5_2devents.csv and hub5_3devents.csv), meaning that global sounds such as opening/closing Sparky, item won, gate, mask, or teleport are missing. There is also no sfx in the initial North American PlayStation 2 release.

Boss Challenges

• The UI has some differences in this game mode:
  • The lap times for each lap are missing. The ranking is placed right below the time instead.
  • There is no player position number.
• The boss kart re-uses the kart engine sound from the anti-gravity segments as a placeholder.
• Multiplier crates are not included in the rows of crates.
• Boss characters have no taunt animations.

Krunk

• The start positions are switched, where the player starts in second place, and Krunk starts in first place. This order can be seen in the handheld versions for all bosses.
• The last Wumpa crate is missing.

Norm

• The rising ramps may not launch the player properly if you don't hold the hop button.
• Little Norm will shoot Bowling Bombs whenever the player is in front of him.

Audio	Transcript
	Pass on the big guy!
	Right where I want ya!
	Look at you, Mr. Speedy Pants!

• Big Norm has taunt clips that will play when the player is leading. These audios were completely removed from the final game.
  • Little Norm on the other hand, will not play his taunt clips.

Geary

• Scrubbers are transparent.
• The scrubber obstacles are still present, but they will not move around.

Velo

• Velo deploys TNT crates behind throughout the entire race.
• Advisers won't deploy Static Orbs at specific locations.
  • As a result, Velo is not immune to Static Orbs.

CNK Challenge

To do: Compare the letter locations.

• The CPU difficulty is more intense in this mode.
• Some of the letters are placed in different locations.

Crystal Arena

• The crystal count uses a static icon instead of the 3D model of a spinning crystal.
• The "JUMP!" notice isn't displayed for this mode.
• The crystal in the results screen is larger.

Relic Race

• Most of the relic times are placeholder times.
  • All Fenomena tracks plus Assembly Lane and Android Alley share the same relic requirements.

Level	Sep 2	Final
Inferno Island	1:35:00 1:20:00 1:05:00	1:35:00 1:15:00 0:55:00
Jungle Boogie	1:40:00 1:25:00 1:10:00	1:40:00 1:18:00 0:55:00
Tiny Temple	2:15:00 2:00:00 1:50:00	2:05:00 2:00:00 1:40:00
Meteor Gorge	1:55:00 1:35:00 1:25:00	2:00:00 1:53:00 1:25:00
Barin Ruins	2:30:00 2:00:00 1:55:00	2:10:00 1:58:00 1:45:00
Deep Sea Driving	2:25:00 2:15:00 2:05:00	2:20:00 2:05:00 1:50:00
Out of Time	3:20:00 3:00:00 2:40:00	2:35:00 2:15:00 1:55:00
Clockwork Wumpa		2:30:00 2:15:00 2:20:00
Thunder Struck		3:00:00 2:38:00 2:15:00
Assembly Lane		2:35:00 2:10:00 1:45:00
Android Alley		2:35:00 2:23:00 2:10:00
Electron Avenue	3:40:00 3:20:00 3:00:00	3:15:00 3:03:00 2:50:00
Hyper Spaceway	4:00:00 3:45:00 3:30:00	4:00:00 3:45:00 3:30:00

Gem Cups

• The Blue Gem and Purple Gem cups have swapped names in the pre-race intros.
• The podium shows the winners of the final race, instead of the total standings of the cup. That means if you lose the last race but still wins by score, the character that won the last race will appear in first place in the podium instead, but you will still earn the gem.

Track Differences

Inferno Island

• The characters in the start line are placed farther apart from each other.
• The second row of crates is placed in the bridge - it was moved further ahead in the final game, next to the shipwreck.

Jungle Boogie

• The last Wumpa crate is placed further behind, right at the exit of the shortcut before the boost pad.
• The last row of crates is placed after the boost pad instead of before it.

Tiny Temple

• The first row of crates is placed after the first curve, rather than at the start of the track.
• The second row of crates is instead placed in the split-path, with two crates on each side. In the final game, the row is placed before the split-path, and there is a single Wumpa crate on each side instead.
• There is a Wumpa crate after the split-path instead.
• Another Wumpa crate is placed ahead, before the anti-gravity section.
• The third row of crates is at the end of the anti-gravity section. In the final game, the row is placed before, and at the end of it there are two Wumpa crates on each side.
• The last row of crates is placed further ahead, after the ramp.
• The last Wumpa crate is placed further behind, before the ramp.
• There is an extra row of crates afterwards.

Meteor Gorge

• Snow particles when driving off-road are not present in the final game.
• There are no snowflakes and fog effects on the screen.
• The second row of crates is placed further ahead.

Barin Ruins

• The characters in the start line are placed farther apart from each other.
• First row of crates placed further behind, before the first robot.
• The Wumpa crate in the cave is placed further ahead, next to the exit with boost pads.
• A multiplier crate is placed inside the shortcut.
• There is no sound effect when hitting the robots (hitbar2.wav).
• The fire in the torches is not present.

Deep Sea Driving

• There are no cave droplets sounds.
• There is a multiplier crate at the start of the track in the off-road section.
• The row of crates before the anti-gravity tube is placed further behind.
• There is a row of crates at the end of anti-gravity tube.
• Fanblades are using a different sound effect (fanblade1.wav and fanblade2.wav instead of fanblad1.wav and fanblad2.wav), though they sound so similar that the change is barely noticeable.

Out of Time

• The CNK start banner is missing.
• The desert bird sfx has a distorted effect.
• The hands of the giant clock do not move around.
• There is no crate in the clock section.
• The last row of crates before the windmill jump is placed further ahead in the curve.

Clockwork Wumpa

• CPU racers cannot fall in the trapdoor while it's open.
• The row of crates before giant gears shortcut is placed further ahead.
• The two crates in the normal path is missing.
• The Wumpa crate is placed further behind, next to the shortcut exit gear.
• An extra multiplier crate is placed in mid-air in the ramp inside the castle.
• The fire in the torch held by the statue is not present.

Thunder Struck

• This track has severe performance issues.
• The CNK start banner is missing.
• There are no rain droplets and green fog effects on the screen.
• There is row of crates after the first anti-gravity section placed before the boost pad. It was replaced by two crates placed further ahead, at the start of the second anti-gravity section.
• The multiplier crate in the final jump is placed further to the left.
• The fire effect of the torches at the end of the track are not drawn properly due to a graphical bug.
• Audio has been changed throughout the track:
  • Spiked swings play a different sound (flipspin.wav instead of gear2.wav).
    • No sound plays when hitting the spiked swings either (hitbarrr.wav).
  • Several coordinates contain environmental audio cues that are not present in the final game, such as electrical sounds and water rain (bluorb.wav, bluorb3.wav, watfall3.wav or watfall4.wav).
  • Wind sound effects (windgst1.wav, windgst4.wav, windgst5.wav) have been replaced with thunders in the final game (thunder2.wav, thunder4.wav, thunder5.wav).

Assembly Lane

• Electrical effects are missing from the scenery.
• The CNK start banner is missing.
• The row of crates before the shortcut is missing.
• There is a row of crates afterwards which was replaced by a single crate instead.
• Inside the factory, the row of crates is placed further ahead.
  • In the compactor section, a sound effect was added in the final game (sign2.wav), which in this version is replaced by steam sounds, which are also used in other parts of the track.
• In the final anti-gravity section, the row of crates is placed further ahead after the boost pad.

Android Alley

• The large screens in the scenery change between the images more often.
• The row of crates before the boost pad at the end of the anti-gravity section is placed further ahead.
• A siren sound effect (siren4.wav) plays in the tunnel section with a sharp right turn after the anti-gravity climb.
• A boost pad is covering the building shortcut exit, although there is no graphics on the floor.
• The row of crates in the normal path is placed ahead.
  • A Wumpa crate is present instead, which was also moved further ahead in the final.
• Scrubbers are circling around in zigzap instead of following a straight line.
• The multiplier crate is placed afterwards, further behind its final location.
• An extra row of crates is placed before the finish line where the multiplier crate is located in the final game.

Electron Avenue

• The race intro is disabled.
• Electric fences use the gate unlock sound effect (gateunlk.wav) as a placeholder. The actual sound effect (gatezap.wav) is missing.
• Moving pads may give you a double boost.
• The CNK start banner is missing.
• There is no row of crates after first moving pad.
• There is no row of crates at the end of the second anti-gravity section.
• There is a small geometry error on the edges of the floor before the finish line.

Hyper Spaceway

• The minimap is enabled in this version.
• The CNK start banner is missing.
• The portal warp sound effect re-uses the warp pad teleportation (gatewarp.wav instead of gatwarp3.wav), but plays at a different pitch.
• There are no Wumpa crates throughout the track.
• There is an extra row of crates in the first anti-gravity section before the fire hazards.
• A ? crate can be seen floating out of bounds behind the portal at the end of the first anti-gravity section.
• The laser beams don't emit any sound effects. Instead, its specific sound effect plays in the background of that section.
• The tube surface at the final anti-gravity section is white.
• No multipler crates at the start of the final anti-gravity section.
• An extra row of crates is placed in the final section underneath the citadel.
• Overall, a lot of the environmental audio cues are very different and use different sounds.

Arena Differences

Frozen Frenzy

• There is an invisible object in the spinning blades.

Desert Storm

• The ceiling is transparent.

Magnetic Mayhem

• The crusher does not work.

Podium

• Dingodile's lose animation has issues with his helmet and eyes being out of sync with his facial movements.
• Zam's lose animation has some issues with his chin.
• The controller notice when unplugged appears onscreen.

Miscellaneous

• The disc contains additional audio data for the other five European languages, although only Dutch has localized audio at this point - the rest duplicates the English audio as a placeholder.
• The HUD text is stored in code parameters instead of the separate language strings file (TIME, L1, L2, L3, LAP, CNK, SAPPHIRE, TOTAL, DEMO, FINAL LAP!, WRONG WAY!, BOOSTS).
• Voice folders are sorted by character instead of by letter.
• The game may occasionally crash and display an error handler.

Unused Audio

Additional Character Clips

All characters have an additional set of voice clips that do not seem to play anywhere in the game. These recordings feature the characters complaining about their own karts.

Character	English Audio	Transcript	Dutch Audio	Transcript
Crash Bandicoot		Oh.
		Whoa!
Coco Bandicoot		Oh nuts!
		Not good.
		Uh oh.
Crunch Bandicoot		C'mon!
		Steady, steady!
		Oh c'mon baby, c'mon, don't do this to me now!
Dr. Neo Cortex		Curses!
		Definitely bad!
		Oh no no no no no no!
		Oh no no no no no no...
N. Gin		Must maintain control!
		What's wrong now?
		C'mon, stay with me!
Tiny Tiger		Why can't drive funny?!
		Why no Tiny go?
N. Trance		No! No! No!
		Argh, not fair!
Polar
Dingodile		C'mon baby!
		What a gust!
		I've lost it! I've lost it!
N. Oxide		Stupid kart.
		This is not good.
Zem		Rotten kart.
		It won't budge... help me out... won't budge...
Zam
Pura
N. Tropy		Steady now.
		Steady on!
Fake Crash		Oh.
		Oh?
		Whooooa!
Velo		Curse this primitive kart!
		Blargh!
		Will you move it?!
		Aaaargh!

Announcer

There is a unused clip of a rather unusual sounding Dr. Neo Cortex asking to press a button to continue. A very similar clip performed by the same voice actor was also scrapped in Crash Team Racing.

	Audio	Transcript
English
		Press Start to Begin
Dutch

Mask Tutorials

Aku Aku and Uka Uka contain two variants of an unused Adventure hint explaining about the Team Mode mechanic. Even though this feature is present in the final game, the dialogues explaining about the mechanic were scrapped in the final game:

	Aku Aku	Uka Uka	Transcript
English
			Whenever you compete for a trophy, a teammate will race with you. Driving close to your teammate will make certain power-ups stronger. By working together, you can win the race.
			Whenever you compete for a trophy, a teammate will race with you. Driving close to your teammate will make your power-ups stronger. By working together, you can win the race.
Dutch

Uka Uka also contains a hint introducing Sparky for the player. While Aku Aku introduces you to Sparky upon first entering the pause menu as Team Bandicoot, Uka Uka says nothing as Team Cortex in the final game. Probably because of his choice of words.

	Uka Uka	Transcript
English		This is Sparky, your robotic slave. Sparky can save your progress, switch your driver, and display information that will help you along in the galaxy circuit. You can summon Sparky by pressing the Start button.
Dutch

Mask Comments

Aku Aku, Uka Uka, and Velo Mask contain extra clips planned to be used during races, but which were removed in the final game. Again, very similar clips were also scrapped in Crash Team Racing.

	Aku Aku	Uka Uka	Velo	Transcript
English
				Team up!
				Juiced up!
				Maximum Wumpa fruit!
				Drive close to your teammate!
				Stay close to your teammate!
				Collect more Wumpa fruit!
				Gather more Wumpa fruit!
Dutch

N. Tropy's Time Trial Quotes

Just like in Crash Team Racing, N. Tropy was going to talk at end of a Time Trial race if the player got a fast enough time to challenge or defeat his ghosts.

	Audio	Transcript
English
		Well met, but just try to beat my best time for this track.
		Well aren't we the speedy one, but you haven't beaten my fastest time for this track.
		Good form ol' chap, but you still have my speed record to contend with.
		Impressive time, think you could take away my title as champion?
		I laugh with your time. Try beating my best time.
		Blast, another record shattered by you!
		You may have beaten my time on this track, but can you beat my times on other tracks?
		You bested my track record, but I still hold the best time for other tracks.
		Good heavens! You beat my best time on this track, but now you face Emperor Velo's best time, and you will never break his record!
		Good show, good show. You've beaten all my track records. Now you may have the great honor of choosing me in the character select screen!
Dutch

• The audio implies that Velo's robotic form was originally intended to be the second ghost, but was ultimately replaced in favor of his real and playable form.

Sidekick Taunts

Despite the bosses being completely silent during the races, all of their voice clips are already present in the files. Interestingly, sidekicks were also intended to taunt the player when passed by, but that was likely scrapped presumably because they were relegated to simple assistants, rather than actual opponents.

Boss	Taunt
Scrubber
Velo's Adviser