10 Completely Shameless Video Game Rip-Offs
7. Crash Team Racing - Diddy Kong Racing
You would think the clear comparison here would be CTR to Mario Kart, given the landmark success of the latter, but CTR is far closer to Diddy Kong Racing than you might've realised.
See,there's never been a story to Mario Kart, it's just the residents of the Mushroom Kingdom going go-karting for an afternoon. Diddy Kong Racing had its expansive adventure mode that drew you in with a brilliant story centring on Wizpig's desire to take over the world.
Long story short, collect Boss Keys, defeat bosses, everyone has a nice time.
Crash Team Racing saw the Naughty Dog crew up against an alien racing driver who wants to take over the world. To stop him, you collect Boss Keys, defeat bosses and everyone has a nice time. See my point? Lazy, derivative design led to a PlayStation copy of Diddy Kong with Crash as it's mascot.
The design team even admitted to re-creating Diddy Kong's 'Crescent Island' during development to 'prove' the PlayStation could handle the track, and looking at it in retrospective, it's shocking how close Crash's Cove came to being a straight-up copy.