When the Disney
movie Cars came out, kids everywhere went crazy over the spirited race car,
Lightning McQueen. From then on, Disney has made toys, apparel and even
video-games based on the movie. Now, the recently released Cars Race-O’-Rama is
on store shelves and kids will definitely be taking a look at it.
Cars Race-O’-Rama
centers on Lightning McQueen and his rivalry with Chick Hicks. The small plot
involves Chick Hicks’ racing school and his students. They want to beat McQueen
at any cost, including cheating, and McQueen races them to prove he’s still the
best and races clean.
While
progressing through story mode with Lightning, you will encounter Chick Hicks’
students as well as your Radiator Springs buddies in a number of different
tracks and mini-games. Once you complete the races in one area, Mack the
semi-truck will escort you to another city with even more races. Many of them
are completed with Lightning, but depending on where you are, you can race with
other characters from the film.
It also offers
an arcade mode where you can play races you’ve unlocked through story mode.
There are circuit races, mini-games, relay races, Guido kart races, rust bucket
derbies and monster truck races available on single and multiplayer in the
arcade mode. Players will have a lot of fun as you can play against your friends
as many of the popular characters from the movie and even new ones only offered
in Race-O-Rama.
All in all, it
does have some good things going for it. There is a great variety of characters
on multiplayer. The races are challenging and fun, and the environments make you
feel like you’ve been thrown right into the movie. Another thumbs up goes for
the humor portrayed in the dialogue. It will have kids laughing throughout the
story mode.
As for the
things that aren’t up to par, the graphics just weren’t there. They were blurry
and this limits the player’s vision as there is a lot happening on the screen.
This makes the game more challenging than it really should be for a younger
audience. The controls were a little problematic at times, too. It does offer
multiple controls, which is good, but the Wii-mote and nunchuck were a strange
combination you might have to get used to. The more reliable control setting to
use would be the motion controls or Wii wheel controls as there are less
problems with these.
In the end, it
was an average Disney experience. Disney tries to pride itself in its movies and
video-games as being magical. This was far from that and even though it was
pretty cool driving around the Cars’ world, too many problems take away from the
magical and fun experience that it could have been.
Gameplay: 6.0
Although some races
got a little monotonous, the motion controls made it Ok to play through without
getting too bored.
Graphics: 5.5
Graphics were
extremely blurry. It almost feels like you are playing on an older system with
these visuals.
Sound: 5.5
The only thing
special about the sound is the voice acting. The music to the game and sound
effects aren’t that pleasing to the ear.
Difficulty: Easy/Medium
If the
graphics were at least good, younger gamers would not have a tough time with the
difficulty. But since they aren’t, younger players will have a harder time
getting their character up front.
Concept: 6.0
Nothing really
new came out of this Cars title. The addition of new characters was definitely a
much needed and fun addition to the Cars franchise.
Multiplayer: 6.0
It is definitely fun
to play with all the characters and against your friends, but you can only play
against one of your friends. Time to take turns!
Overall: 6.0
Cars Race O’
Rama had some nice new additions, but in the end just wasn’t as fun as racing in
Lightning McQueen’s world should be.
