by:	July 11, 2006

A lot of people, a few review sites but mostly kids and parents have been raving about Cars and how “unique” it is. Don’t listen to any of them, this game pretty much sucks. Of course I’m saying that as a grown man who lives for loud noises, explosions and zombie bashing mayhem. However, if I was a kid or a parent I would probably say differently…so by all means, if you are one of them then for you this game won’t suck!

Gameplay
Don’t be entirely surprised here but there’s not really any steady story to this game to even mention. Basically it just picks up where the end of Cars left off where you play as Lightning McQueen driving around Radiator Springs participating in races and mini-games to participate in the “Piston Cup.” The controls have been dumbed down for this game so severely that this is flat-out a two button game. “A” is the acceleration and “X” is the brake while the left analog stick of course moves the car. The “Y” button is the very useless e-brake while “B” is the very useless power slide that sends your car sliding onto two wheels and usually straight into a wall if you’re not careful. The game pretty much loses a ton of its “uniqueness” when it’s ruled down to only two buttons and the fact that racing itself pretty much sucks too doesn’t help at all.

Driving in a race is very straightforward and quite easy to comprehend which is a plus for racing games in general. Problem is that it’s so simplistic and boring that it never feels like you are really racing at high rates of speed. It feels more or less like a quiet Sunday cruise with some other people at the same time. The computer opponents are not aggressive whatsoever and seem like they could care less if they win or not. Plus they also seem to follow the same exact path as one another not allowing any “uniqueness” to the race…only simplicity and boredom. Actually driving your car is pretty ridiculous too because it’s so poorly executed that a simple race feels like a drawn out, boring, uneventful, quiet snore-fest. Each car is very sensitive to the touch and likes to skid all over the course with each push of the stick. The back of the cars will usually be all over the place fighting with the front to stay straight and in control. Overall the gameplay is the biggest letdown for the game but, seriously…for kids, they’re not going to care one bit…and the designers knew that from day one.