Disney Pixar Cars
Score: 75% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: THQ Developer: Rainbow Studios Media: Cartridge/1 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: Family/ Action/ Racing
Graphics & Sound: Game adaptations of animated features are falling behind licensed games from live-action movies. We have good games from X-Men and Spiderman, which you would think require a bit more suspension of disbelief to make a transition to gaming... Disney properties have a mixed history, but manage to pull out pleasant surprises from time to time. Cars is (no pun intended) squarely in the middle of the road compared to past ventures. The best of Cars for DS is the creativity, and there's no question the kiddies will enjoy seeing their favorite charactes on the screen in lots of mini-games that pull from the movie. There's also a race mode that grows over time as you unlock new characters and tracks. Unlocking new characters will also expose more mini-games, so there's always new game material unfolding. The mini-games are nicely designed from a visual perspective, and the game-select screen (the drive-in) lets you get a closer view at some of the higher profile characters. Sarge, Filmore, Mater...they all get some action, and the locations from the movie are recognizable. Don't expect to explore Radiator Springs in "freeride" mode, but short of that the spirit of the movie carries over nicely to the game.
Gameplay: A racing game flanked by mini-games, or the other way around? No telling what the intention, but Cars feels to me like a collection of mini-games with some racing glue that keeps the game tied to the movie. A dozen mini-games are available, with three open at the beginning. If this doesn't sound like a lot of room to run, you quickly find that opening the remaining mini-games takes serious work, but more on that later... There is also a Piston Cup race available in the beginning, with three additional tracks to race. The connection between regular racing and mini-games comes after you beat the first three mini-games. This opens up a new track in the race mode, and winning on that track reveals three new mini-games. Do this three times and you've unlocked all that Cars has to offer. Actually, there are expanded versions of the mini-games, and the replay value is good. Of course, right? They're mini-games, which lend themselves to replay. I wish there was more even gameplay overall, in terms of difficulty, but the end result here is okay for older kids. The game isn't deep enough to really hold those older fans, which is a shame. It was also disappointing that more of a gallery of stills, music or video from the film wasn't available. In terms of expanding the racing mode, multiplayer offers a chance to go head-to-head with one and only one friend. It's too bad that there isn't more support for three or four players in the race, or multiplayer support for mini-games. Several of the mini-games would have made for good competition, but the feeling I had after playing through Cars was that it had been on a good track, but rushed out of the Pit and onto shelves.
Difficulty: It's no surprise that with Rainbow involved, the racing is pretty darn good. Racing still feels like it includes a lot of freebies, as if some effort was made to create a kid friendly game. Why this didn't spill over into the mini-games, we can't know. It would have been nice to see some cumulative point system in the mini-games that would have allowed younger players to actually get past the first three and see more of Cars. Older kids won't have too much trouble, but the pacing is frantic in the mini-games. The Piston Cup feels tame after trying to get Snot Rod through traffic, weaving and waiting for that snot-fueled nitro burst... Fun, but frustrating for the younger set. Sometimes frustrating for me, too. So, Cars falls out of the slot, in terms of being accessible for a wide range of gamers. There may be some appeal to racing with two players, but not enough depth to keep anyone long term. No upgrades, no unlockable content beyond the mini-games, and no real advantage to using one character over another. Cars is vanilla racing punctuated by some overly difficult mini-games, which leaves it quite in the cracks where its main demographic is concerned.
Game Mechanics: Props for good use of the touch-screen. And, where possible, the mini-games allow use of buttons instead of the touch-screen. This may be handy for some, if the dexterity required on games like Flo's Cafe is just too much. During the Piston Cup segments, standard controls (via the D-pad and buttons) are used in place of the touch pad. Saving and deleting files is managed through the "lobby" or drive-in screen. Cars does fall flat, which is unfortunate since the movie was full of good ideas that actually carried over to the game. Tweaking the A.I. or devising a more flexible system for progress in the game would have been ideal. Or, at least for the younger games who would love to get some Lightning McQueen action on their DS, it would have been made better if the difficulty weren't so uneven. There's always something to be said for the appeal of cool characters in a licensed game, but nothing licensed ever seems to get the time and attention needed to go from good to great. Depending on how much time you or your kid are ready to devote to Cars, it ranks a solid "Okay." This one really needed more time and content to be anywhere near as jaw-dropping as its big-screen counterpart.
-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock
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