Confession time: I only tolerate the Mario Kart series because it reminds me of Crash Team Racing. There. I said it.
Right now there are likely a few of you wondering why IGN would play host to such heresy. The audacity! Mario Kart: the second highest-selling racing series of all time behind Need for Speed. Mario Kart: the original kart racer, and the blueprint for every kart racer ever since. Mario Kart! The greatest spin-off series since they decided to build a new Starship Enterprise and put Patrick Stewart in charge of it.
But the rest of you are saying, ‘Duh. Crash Team Racing crushes Mario Kart. This isn’t a radically unique opinion.’
And yet, after just a pair of PS2 sequels that never resonated with me in quite the same way, Crash’s four-wheeled follies dried up. A fourth, unannounced Crash karting game was reportedly in development at High Impact Games last generation, but it was cancelled for unknown reasons around 2010 (clearly there was only room in Activision’s quiver for a single kart game, and the flaccid Dreamworks money-spinner Madagascar Kartz had already beaten Crash to the shelves). The marsupial himself was mothballed for many years until his 2017 resurrection in the warmly received Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, the success of which has certainly paved the road for the newly-announced Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled.
Source: IGN.com Opinion: How Crash Team Racing Beat Mario Kart at Its Own Game