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“Get ready to race for the fate of your planet!”
—Nitros Oxide, Crash Team Racing
Nitros Oxide (Nitrous Oxide in Crash Nitro Kart or N. Oxide or simply Oxide) is an alien from the planet Gasmoxia who serves as the main antagonist of Crash Team Racing. He first appeared in Crash Team Racing and his latest appearance was in Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2.
Story
Crash Team Racing
Greetings, creatures of this planet, I've come to compete. So you pesky earthlings like to race, eh, hehehehe. Well I, Nitros Oxide, am the fastest racer in the galaxy. I travel the stars looking for creatures to test my skills. It's a little game I call Survival of the Fastest. Here's the way we play: I challenge the best driver of your world to a race for the planet. If your driver wins I'll leave your miserable little rock alone. But if I win I'll turn your entire globe into a concrete parking lot and make you my slaves. HAHAHAHAHAHA! Get ready to race for the fate of your planet!
Nitros Oxide, Crash Team Racing
Promotional artwork of Nitros Oxide in his hovercraft in Crash Team Racing.
Nitros Oxide was first seen in Crash Team Racing when he came to Earth to challenge the planet's people to a racing contest he called "Survival of the Fastest". He said that if Earth's inhabitants won the contest then he would leave Earth alone, but if he won he would turn Earth into a giant concrete parking lot and enslave the inhabitants of the planet. Earth's champion racer was able to defeat Oxide and then again after collecting the time relics. He went back to Gasmoxia in shame. As stated in the credits, after years of therapy, Nitros Oxide began to race again, but he chose the unicycle as a vehicle and wound up in a grotesque accident. His hovercraft is neon green and has perfect 5/5 sats in every category, a feat only shared by Penta Penguin in the PAL version of Crash Team Racing. Because of this, he is unplayable without cheating devices.
Stats
Speed: 7/7
Acceleration: 7/7
Turning: 7/7
Difficulty: Expert
Other Game appearances
Crash Bash
In Crash Bash, he appeared again as the final boss. He was on his way home to Gasmoxia until running into this planet, and noticing Crash and his friends. He fights the player in his space craft and then lands on a world that much looked like the Futuristic levels of Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, in which you must stop him in a challenge like the Ballistix levels.
Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
When the logos are shown at the start of the game, he is seen flying through space, probably flying back to Gasmoxia.
Crash Nitro Kart
Later, he was seen in Crash Nitro Kart racing for Emperor Velo the 27th on Team Oxide, alongside Zem, Zam and Velo himself. After a unicycle accident on Gasmoxia, Oxide returned to get revenge on Crash and his friends, bringing his allies Zam and Zem into the fray. This was his first official playable appearance. Strangely whenever he is on the trophy podium when he wins, he dances with a cane while wearing a top hat similar to Ripper Roo. Oxide's head is also more narrow in this appearance.
Stats
Speed: 3/7
Acceleration: 5/7
Turning: 4/7
Difficulty: Intermediate
Crash Twinsanity
Nitros Oxide in Crash Twinsanity.
In Crash Twinsanity, he appears as a cameo, and is one of the villains at Crash's "birthday party", arriving in his hovercraft from Crash Team Racing. He appears to have two different shades of green on his skin and his snout is longer and has bumps on it.
Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D
Oxide's model in Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D.
Oxide is one of the main antagonists along with Dr. Cortex and Ripper Roo in Nitro Kart 3D as well as a playable character by unlocking him. Even though his icon looks like his CTR icon, the design of Oxide has drastically changed in appearance as he doesn't wear any clothes and the head is modeled to look more narrow.
Appearance
Nitros Oxide is a green alien who seems to resemble a mantis. Nitros is very tall and has a skinny, droopy mouth with a large head with yellow stripes and orange parts on his sides. He has 2 pairs of legs totaling to four and usually wears a purple suit with big sleeves.
Personality
Oxide in his spaceship in Crash Team Racing.
Nitrous Oxide, although very brave, is a very sore loser and has a short temper. He alligns himself with most of the other aliens and he is the fastest racer in the galaxy. Like other villains in the Crash Bandicoot series he also has a strong interest in world domination. He has an obsessive love for speed, explaining why he deserves to rule Earth for his fabulous talent of racing. Although his age is unknown, he hints after his second defeat in CTR that his slowness is due to his old age. As shown in the final race against him in CTR, he is not above cheating and playing dishonorably, proven as he starts racing before the countdown.
Videos
Gallery
.png "CTR Nitros Oxide In-Kart (Front).png (501 KB)")
.png "CTR Nitros Oxide In-Kart (Back).png (378 KB)")
Trivia
- In Crash Team Racing, his name is Nitros Oxide, while in Crash Nitro Kart, his name is misspelled as Nitrous Oxide.
- According to Oxide, he is the reason why there's no life on Mars. He raced against the inhabitants of Mars before he raced Earth and Mars lost, leaving it as a desolate, barren planet (this is said in scrapped dialogue).
- While facing Oxide in CTR, he had the weapons of the previous race bosses, except Ripper Roo; he used Papu Papu's green and red beakers, Komodo Joe's TNT/Nitro Crates, and Pinstripe's Bombs (shot backwards). He shoots crates and beakers in pairs. Also, he managed to start moving before the the signal.
- His name is a pun on nitrous oxide, which fittingly, is used as an oxidizer gas in Combustion Engine systems, resulting in sudden bursts of speed upon "Spraying". It is also known as "laughing gas" in medical application.
- If the player uses a language glitch, his head is changed to Papu Papu.
- When you attack Nitros Oxide in Crash Team Racing, whilst in Adventure mode, instead of his kart flipping like any other character's kart, he spins around in circles, but if he is hit with a bubble shield or with Aku Aku or Uka Uka (using cheats) or if a TNT crate explodes on him, he will bounce up and down.
- There's a long-running rumor that says you can unlock him by beating every one of his ghosts, but the only way to unlock him is using a Gameshark cheat.
- If Oxide falls off the track in Crash Team Racing, he is helped by Uka Uka, who should ironically be against him.
- His theme when fighting him in Crash Bash is a mix of Dingodile's theme from Warped.
- In Crash Team Racing, Nitros Oxide has maxed out stats, but in Crash Nitro Kart, he doesn't have the maxed out state, probably because he's using a kart, not a hovercraft (and because he is not as important a character to the story).
- This is supported by one of Oxide's own quotes in CNK where he states that his kart is "Not bad for primitive technology."
- Except by unlocking him with cheat codes in CTR, Oxide's victory podium animation is never seen in the game.
- If Nitros Oxide is unlocked via game shark code, the player will find that he has Uka Uka as his patron mask.
- In Crash Team Racing, Oxide was originally intended to be playable, but was scrapped. This is evidenced by using a Gameshark code. He even has additional voice lines for when you play as him, instead of the mocking ones used in the boss race.
- In Crash Nitro Kart, Oxide references his own challenge to Earth; "Survival of the Fastest".
- It is strange that Oxide is in "Crash's birthday party" in Twinsanity, because he should be against Cortex.
- Oxide was originally another evil scientist with a more standard human appearance. During development, the story was that he was trying to make the world faster and faster until the end of time, because of his obsession with speed. While further details about the original story are scarce, an old comic suggests Oxide would use a machine called the X Device.