Crash Nitro Kart (PlayStation 2)

Crash Nitro Kart is essentially Crash Team Racing 2 in everything but name, right down to the concept of a tyrannical racing-obsessed alien forcing the marsupial, his friends, and his enemies to race for the fate of Earth. Because screw originality.

Virtual Lobby
Welcome to the Virtual Lobby. Here you may practice your skills while you wait for the race to start. When a player joins the game, an icon will appear on the left of the screen. The game will begin once the host enters the Warp Vortex located in the center of the arena. To begin a battle you must drive to the center of the arena and enter the warp vortex. The vortex will take you and any players that have joined, to the level you selected. To begin a race you must drive to the center of the arena and enter the warp vortex. The vortex will take you and any players that have joined, to the level you selected. Press the Start Button to change your level. Press the Start Button to change your level and other game settings. The color next to your character icon represents your team color. To switch to a different team, drive over one of the four colored pads that represent each team color. A vast portion of the game's text concerns a mode which wasn't even present in the final version, known as the "Virtual Lobby". Judging by the strings found in the game's code, it would've served as an online mode where players can race or battle each other in color-assigned teams. The surviving text is rather comprehensive, implying it went a long way in development prior to getting cut.

Unused Text
A huge amount of unused strings exist in the game's coding, the vast majority of them corresponding to the aforementioned Virtual Lobby that never was. However, there are also a small number of miscellaneous oddities within the code. NETWORK SETUP ENTER IP ADDRESS ENTER NETMASK ENTER GATEWAY ENTER DNS SELECT NETWORK CHOOSE SERVER USE PASSWORD ENTER YOUR SERVER PASSWORD ENTER PASSWORD FOR SERVER CHOOSE TEAM PRESS\nSTART BUTTON\nTO JOIN NO PASSWORD CHANGE SERVER NAME CHANGE PASSWORD ENABLE SETUP RACE SETUP BATTLE SETUP OK net_players_list wrap CHANGE SETUP CONNECT Initializing the network system. Connecting to network \ninterface Closing network interface. Network interface failed to \ninitialize. Check your network \nsettings. The network link is down. Make \nsure the network cable is \nconnected. No Ethernet network hardware \nfound. Detected unsupported network \nhardware LEAVE GAME WAITING RACING CNK SERVER Scanning for servers. . . Connecting with server. . . Failed to connect with server. Network connection closed. \nServer shutdown. Failed to connect. Server is full. Network connection timed out \nand closed. \nInternal buffer overflow. \nIncorrect password. ENTERING RACE AS A SPECTATOR... JOIN (COLOR) TEAM ENTERING LOBBY WORLD... THE SERVER HAS SHUTDOWN.\\nRETURNING TO MAIN MENU. NETWORK CONNECTION LOST.\\nRETURNING TO MAIN MENU. CHOOSE REGION As mentioned above, these correspond to the Virtual Lobby.
 * 1) Failed to initialize networking \nhardware.

PLACE HOLDER An obvious placeholder string with no clear purpose.

CONCEPT ART This suggests that at one point, Crash Nitro Kart may have gone the way of Crash Twinsanity and included unlockable concept art as one played through the game.

MAKING OF Perhaps at one point there was to be a "behind the scenes" documentary of sorts showcasing the development of the game?

OUT TAKES These were very likely intended to be a 100% bonus for finishing both Adventure modes, featuring comedic spins on the CGI cutscenes in the game's story. Time may well have forced their abandonment.

Voodoo Doll Item
Demo builds of the game featured a Voodoo Doll power-up which acted very similarly to the "Team Frenzy" boost present in the final, in addition to creating an "angelic" aura around the user. As the Team Frenzy meter builds up over the course of the race in accordance with how well you drive, the excessive power-ups it grants you are well justified, so to have a regular item generate the same effect would likely make it overpowered. As such, its removal in the final appears justified...

...Until glancing through the coding reveals it wasn't actually removed from the game at all – it was merely disabled and still present in the "item cycling" animation after hitting a crate, with cheat codes being able to force the item to appear from the crates scattered around each track. The weapon has unusual yet devastating effects when activated in the final game, shrinking the racer in first place as well as slowing them down and distorting their turning, complete with a rain cloud similar to the souped-up Beaker items in Crash Team Racing. On top of that, it also speeds up the user while creating the same light effect, only lacking the pseudo Team Frenzy effect from the demo.

It is largely unusual how the item's effect not only differs between the demo and final builds, but that the item is considerably more unbalanced in the final despite not being used.

ARENA 6
Included with the Battle Courses in the game files is a string simply known as. It would seem that a sixth Battle Course was planned, but was never elaborated upon further in development. As each Battle Course is based on each of the four hub worlds, in addition to Velo's Citadel, it is unknown what this arena would have corresponded to.