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The gang is all here, Lightning McQueen, Mater, Sally and all of the other lovable characters from Pixar’s Cars. Armed with a cool car themed sound track, and a free flowing story, Cars had great potentional to be a great racing game. Unfortunately the one thing that sets it apart from the other versions is exactly what prevents it to be a great racing game, the controls. The game starts with players playing as Lightning, a local town hero who is voiced by Owen Wilson. Now Lightning has been taking a break from his racing adventures, and has decided to get back into racing. The problem is he has been gone for so long, he can’t just enter any race, he has to work his way back into the pro circuit. In order to accomplish this, he has to drive around town and challenge people to races and do missions for various cars around town.
The free roaming aspect of the game is pretty fun. Players get to go around and talk to other cars and get into races, or just do errands for them. The races are extremely easy, Lightning is the fastest car in the game, or so it seems. Out of all of the races I was in I always took first place. Racing mainly consists of just staying on the track and not hitting anything, as long as you do this, first place is yours. One of the errands has you play Mater going tractor tipping. Unfortunately, almost all of the fun is sucked out of this part of the game because of the controls. Controlling Mater is like controlling a marble in maze, you tilt the controller in the direction you want him to go; Away from you for forward, towards you for reverse, etc. The controls for the game are much like the controls in Excite Truck. Hold the controller sideways, and tilt it the direction you want to steer. The D-Pad is used for power sliding and tilting. The 2 button is used for gas, and the 1 button should be used for brake, but that is what the B button is for apparently. The 1 button is used for turbo when you have it. The confusing controls cannot be customized, which can become frustrating. Graphically the game looks reasonably good, and the character models look pretty close to what they look like in the movie. The game’s major flaw is the lack of anti-aliasing, and although it doesn’t detract any from the game, it is an annoyance. Popup is really bad as well, and it is extremely annoying coming up on a corner, and relying on the mini map. I have found myself getting ready to turn the wrong way on a track I was unfamiliar with on more than one occasion. The music, on the other hand, is almost perfect for this game. Classic car tunes by groups such as Lynard Skynard are included, and It is a lot of fun humming to Free Ride while cruising around town, or in a race. Cars is a great game - for kids. For the rest, as fun as the game is, there is not much substance to keep more mature gamers entertained.
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