Cars – GBA – Review

Well it’s that time again. It’s time
for another Pixar movie and the mandatory video games based upon the movie.
First off I must say that I really enjoyed the movie. In my opinion it didn’t
start off as one of the best Pixar films but at the end I thought it was a great
flick. The movie, in case you haven’t figured out from the title, is based upon
race cars. Instead of humans driving the cars, the cars in the movie are the
humans. The NASCAR inspired race, called the Piston Cup, is the biggest sporting
event in the world of Cars. The principal characters in the movie and game are
the living legend The King, the disgruntled veteran Chick Hicks, the young
rookie Lightning McQueen and the forgotten Hudson (Doc) Hornet. The story of the
game takes place after the events that transpired in the movie.

The majority of the game has you
playing the role of Lightning McQueen racing in Ornament Valley/Radiator Springs
and preparing for the Piston Cup. The races in the game are usually of two
varieties; a race against the clock and a race against other cars. The majority
of the races actually have you pitted against Chick Hicks. There is the
occasional race against The King or Doc Hudson but Chick Hicks is your primary
adversary in the game. You start off by racing in Radiator Springs and after
winning a few races you get to compete in the Piston Cup races.

The Radiator Spring races are more
reckless then the races in the Piston Cup. There are three type of races you
will compete in; Road Races, Circuit Races and Route Races. The Road Races are a
one-on-one race to win while the Circuit Races have you racing against three
other drivers. The Route Races are a race against the clock to see how fast you
can finish the course. All of the races in Radiator Springs are a combination of
dirt and road surfaces. The Piston Cup races have you racing on a super speedway
track (think Daytona 500) against several other cars. 

Getting used to the controls of the
cars is the only difficult part of the game. The dirt portions of the Radiator
Spring races can make it difficult to control your car especially during
corners. Since you start out in Radiator Springs you will probably be bumping
all over the track like the ball in a pinball machine. But it only took a few
minutes and a couple of laps to get use to steering the different cars in the
game. You can perform a powerslide in the game by oversteering when entering a
corner. Getting used to powersliding can be helpful in getting a few extra
seconds away from the other drivers. The Radiator Spring races throw a couple
other features at you to either give you a speed boost or slow you down to a
near stop. There are green boosting arrows that you can drive over to give you a
quick boost of speed. But be careful because if you run over a red nullifying
arrow it will slow down you instantly.

The Piston Cup races don’t offer the
speed boosting or reducing arrows and crazy controls found in the Radiator
Spring races. It’s a simple race to win against a large field of race cars. But
there is one unique feature of the Piston Cup races that is the ability to draft
off of a car in front of you. In order to draft you have to be right behind
another car and soon a draft meter will appear on the screen. Once the meter is
filled up you can press the right shoulder button to gain a temporary boost of
speed to pass the car in front of you. The drafting feature creates a little bit
of tension during some tight races especially when you’re close to the finish
line.

As I wrote earlier the controls are
the only difficult part of the game and that challenge only took a short time to
overcome. The game tries to keep the races tight but I never felt challenged in
any way during a majority of the races. I think I had to race one track three
times before I finally beat it and that was during the first 15 minutes of
playing the game. After the initial learning curve was over I didn’t lose a
single race on my way to winning all of the races. Sounds great and sure it is
except that I beat all of the tracks in less than one day. The ending credits
were already rolling only after a couple hours of gameplay. I would suggest
playing this game in 10 to 15 minutes increments at a time just to stretch out
your gameplay time.

The graphics in the game were a
pleasant surprise since this is the Game Boy Advance version. All of the cars in
the game are 3D models that look similar to their movie versions. The camera
angle is presented in an over-the-top view that is always fixed on your car.
Your view of the track is limited since the camera is locked to you but you do
get pop-up arrows showing you the direction of the upcoming curves and corners.
There were special effects that would show up such as tire tracks being left by
your car, items bouncing around the tracks if you hit something and dust/smoke
flying up during parts of the races. The game would slow down just a little when
there was more than two cars on the screen at a time.

In the end how can I really rank a
game that I finished in one day? Sure I’m probably not the target audience for
the game, especially since this is the Game Boy Advance version. However, there
are plenty of young gamers that will be stuck on the road this summer that will
probably face the same situation I did and finish the game in less than a day.
The only replay value offered by the game is the ability to unlock cars, paint
colors for your cars and still pictures from the movie. It’s not much but for
some dedicated gamers I’m sure it’s enough to keep them coming back for more.

Gameplay: 7.0
The controls of the cars feels very loose at first but after a few minutes you
should get used to the controls.

Graphics: 7.0
The graphics of the cars in the game do resemble the characters from the movie
and look very nice especially for a GBA game. However, the rest of the graphics
are rather limited when compared to the car models. Still it’s always a nice
surprise to see 3D models playing on a GBA screen.

Sound: 6.0
The sound effects and music in the game are good enough but nothing to tell your
friend about.

Difficulty: Easy
If we had a different rating below easy then it would apply here. I’m sure some
younger gamers might have more of a challenge but probably not much.

Concept: 5.5
Hey, it’s another game based upon a movie but this time it fits because it’s
about car racing. If only there was more gameplay variety in the game besides
just four different type of races.

Overall: 6.4
In the end Cars really isn’t a bad game for the GBA. In fact it shows that with
the right programmers the GBA can still put out good titles even if it’s a game
based on a movie. If the game wasn’t over so soon and offered some additional
gameplay modes then Cars would have been a top notch title for the GBA.