A big thanks to Crashnconker for supplying all of these pictures.
A
lot of things were changed from the E3 demo to the final version of this
game, most of them being improvements, others just odd changes.
The demo has a timer which varies depending on the countries. Once the
time's up, the demo ends. Only Crash and Cortex are playable in the demo,
each in their Tier 1 cars. Playable areas include Midway, Track and The
Beanstalk and Rings of Uranus (tracks accessible by entering the
respective hub's main gate). There are also the Classic Crash and Neo-Fu
skins available in the Midway.
Early Trailer The demo begins with a montage, much like the final version. The car
shown at the beginning is the same (Le Chaux), but the music that
accompanies it is different. It then shows the old
logo and cuts to a
montage of early (therefore different) scenes, still with Rings of Uranus
music. This movie is available for download in certain game sites.
Title Screen The title screen sports the old logo's font for the words "TAG
TEAM RACING", along with other minor differences. Most noticeably,
the music played here is an early version of Fossil Fuel Injection.
Aku Aku / Fonts and Colours - And you thought they forgot Aku Aku. Apparently they just didn't
want him in the game, as he used to appear in the pause menu and at the
end of a race. Now he's reduced to a mere cameo in Tiki Turbo.
- Some different font colours are displayed here, like white.
- A different "Finished!" font.
Start Signs / Pasadena's Star Car - Instead of the crossed checkered flags, there'd be the word
"START" at the beginning of each race, with an appropriate style
for each track (also displayed on the Mysterious
Trailer).
- Pasadena's demo car doesn't appear in the final
version. It does make a comeback as Pasadena's PSP-exclusive car, though.
Character Select Screen Plain, different and greenish. The car appears to the right of the
character instead of taking his/her place in the middle. The circle around
each icon is larger.
Racing HUD The HUD was a bit different. The speed-o-meter is the little blue bar
on the bottom right, and the health is actually the big bar that's usually
the speed-o-meter. The boost meter was eventually altered too.
Clashing Glitches Sometimes if you switch seats when clashed, the AI character will sit
on the side of the car.
Zoom in! When clashed, the L1 button acted as a zooming function if you're the
gunner. This function never got past the demo.
Green
Fire Guy The Fire Guy powerup is green when it's thrown.
Incomplete
Classic Crash By the time the demo was done, the spinning animation wasn't yet added
to the Classic Crash skin. This makes Crash look normal when he spins with
this skin on.
Smooth Framerate Though some consoles versions have a higher framerate than others, the
PS2 one has 30 frames per second. The demo, however, has about 50/60, even
on the PS2. Needless to say, this wasn't such a welcome change, but it may
had been needed due to technical resolutions.
Imperium Cortex's Tier 1 car, the Imperium, is different on the back. It makes
it harder to see Cortex.
Speed Names The selectable speeds are called "Fast", "Faster"
and "Fastest", as opposed to the usual "Normal",
"Fast" and "Insane". Interestingly, the demo that came
with the Official PlayStation 2 Magazine had the final "Normal",
"Fast" and "Insane" (thanks to Zoton2 for pointing
that out). That is the only difference between both demos.
Car Engine Noise It be different.
Leaping Cars jump a lot higher when they go off bumps in the road.
Landing When a car hits the ground after a bit of hang time, it doesn't
produce the metal sound effect or the sparkles from under it.
Final
Lap Music The final lap music is constantly the bad version until you manage to
get in first place (then it switches to the good version). In the game,
the good version is used for both first and second places. Not only that,
but the final lap music is used during the second lap too for some reason.
Explosion
Sounds You can always hear when someone explodes, regardless of how far away
that character is from you.
Ending Screen The screen that's presented once demo time is over. It's odd how the
cover art has the final logo and Crash & Cortex have different
expressions.
Removed Lines There appear to be a few lines from races that were eventually
removed. For example, Cortex will sometimes say "I skinned my
knee!".
Here is a video showing "Midway" and "Track
and the Beanstalk", provided by Micster:
