VGM of the Week #34

Last time around, I promised to pick a song not from a Nintendo console.

I wanted to show some love to the original Playstation, and I agonized for a while over which game to pay tribute to. Eventually I landed on Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, easily my favorite Crash game and nestled snugly in my top 5 Playstation 1 games of all time. If you've never checked it out, I'd highly recommend downloading it from Playstation Network.

Here's a nice little industrial ditty that I catch myself humming from time to time; it plays during the game's sewer levels (The Eel Deal, Sewer or Later, and Hangin' Out) and it's one of the more memorable tracks in the game. It was between this or the music from the Jet Pack stages!




Did you know that Mark Mothersbaugh composed the Playstation Era Crash games? Yes, that Mark Mothersbaugh, from Devo? He also composed the incidental music for Rugrats and Rocket Power, but he was able to give Crash Bandicoot a fun, unique, Australian flavor of its own. Pretty cool.

The Top Ten Kart Racers (That Aren't Mario Kart)

Ever since Super Mario Kart hit the market 20 years ago, the racing genre has had a smaller sub-genre; the mascot-driven kart racer. Taking the arcade style racing game, throw in some crazy locations and power-ups and of course, some sort of licensed character seemed like instant cash for developers. It seems like every property out there has been involved in a Kart racing game at least one time or another, from Sonic to Pac-Man to South Park, the Smurfs and even Homies.

9.8/10

 However, it doesn’t always work out. Very few Kart racing games ever even come close to capturing half the magic of Mario Kart and even more of them are just flat out bad. Now, I love Kart racing games, especially Mario Kart, so I’ve played a lot over the years and I’d be lying if I didn’t say there have been quite a few that have stood out as more than just rip-offs. So, I’m counting down the top ten best Kart racing games, that are not Mario Kart.