Video game preservationist Darkaiser has shared juicy footage of a mod that allows the original Crash Team Racing to run at a consistent 60 frames per second. More impressively, according to Darkaiser, it’s running on “unmodified PlayStation with no overclock.” He attributes this achievement to the modder Niko, whose “mountain of optimizations” allowed the project to achieve these incredible results.
Also, I didn’t know how deep the modding scene goes. In the video’s description, Darkaiser also mentions a level tool under development by Redhot, which modders have used to build over 30 brand-new tracks.
The number of hours I played Crash Team Racing as a kid is both uncountable and unverifiable, so let’s say it’s 10,000 hours, because that’s how much CTR it feels like I played back then. For some reason, though, the CTR remake that came out a few years back didn’t pique my interest. “Been there. Done that,” I told myself (or something to that effect). But 60FPS classic Crash Team Racing with a level editor? Yes, please. Thank you very much.
In other related news: I should stop being shocked every time I find out an old game still has an active modding community, because of course it does, you dumdum.
