Cars

**the4thnobleman** · May 18, 2009

What is a racing game by any other name?

Pixar's hit movie Cars saw a lot of success in it's hey-day in the theaters and the same acclaim follows it into Disney's big moneymaker. Merchandising! This title looks to cash in nicely on that with more of the same.

The story follows Lightning McQueen and his escapades on the "next" season of racing, and it follows all the canon associated with the previous one. Chick won the last season and McQueen is left looking better in the end having helped The King across the finish line from a nasty spill thanks to Chick. You start out with a handful of activities you can do, which range from Tractor Tipping to chasing speeders as the cop car character whose name eludes me. All the characters are represented in digital form and the graphical representation is absolutely amazing. All the cars bring out their distinct flavors from Tommy Chong as the VW party van, and of course Larry the Cable guy as Mater. They all animate real time so you get a nice vibrant feel for all the characters and they actually feel like...well, characters!

At it's core it's a racing game. Standard fare, off and on-road courses fill in the majority and rarely will you ever race outside of anyone besides McQueen himself. There's a drift button for mild to moderate turns, and a lean button for cutting into the hairpins. Turbo boosting becomes a part of the game later on available in three "stages" each adding a little more length to the turbo meter. All this leads up to an ultimate showdown against Chick, ending in the final "season" race where you ultimately take the win.

All in all, the game falls horribly short once you get to the actual gameplay. A.I. is set up horrendously. A seasoned gamer will not have any issue keeping 3~5 seconds ahead of second place all the time. The trouble is on the last lap of ANY race, in ANY mode the A.I. will suddenly turn stupid. Anyone familiar with R.C. Pro-Am will remember a glitch in that title where if you placed 1st several times in a row, the game will kick the A.I. in the nuts and turbo-charge them, making it impossible to win EVERY match. Well, Cars is the exact opposite. Regardless of how you do in any race, the A.I. is scripted to go from "close match" to "dead stop" on the final lap. I kid you not. Average times on the opening laps for 10 random races was 4.75 seconds. Final lap average for 10 races at random was 37 seconds. It's obviously bad....terribly bad....meant to make a 2 year old look good, bad.

All in all, it was a good 2 hour time-waster. An easy 1000/1000 gamerscore without being too terribly easy(see:Avatar) and worth the money I paid for it, which was very little.

**bass.exe21** · May 19, 2009

So, why did you buy it in the first place? Just the achievements?

**CapitalRadioTwo** · May 19, 2009

The movie is Pixar's second worst. I would imagine this shows in the title.

**the4thnobleman** · May 19, 2009

Bought for the achievements. It was a solid price for the 1000 gamerscore.

I actually enjoyed it, but I think it was because it reminded me of an old forgotten cartoon I recall seeing where cars were the "people" of the story.

Come to think of it I haven't seen that animated short in ages now. I don't even remember if it was produced by Disney originally or Hanna....or even both in response to one another.

I distinctly remember two toons. One had a "hot rod" hopped up on high-octane fuel outrunning a train until they ran out. Supposed to teach a life lesson. The other I vaguely even remember the story, but I want to say I remember a scene with a car driving alone in the rain in a sad moment within the cartoon.

They were always two that stuck in my head and I thought highly of them. Perhaps CRT can work his magic and spot us the video someplace, that is if any of it rings a bell.

It wasn't great, but I definitely didn't think it was the worst. Saying its Pixar's second worst is sort of like saying its the worlds second smallest diamond. It's still a standard much higher than most studios provide.

---------- Post added at 05:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:24 PM ----------

Susie the Car!

Thats the disney one.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pxap-M_--k"]YouTube - Susie the car...really cute cartoon! - mickeys disney store.com[/ame]

**chrisat928** · May 19, 2009

Originally Posted by Noble

One had a "hot rod" hopped up on high-octane fuel outrunning a train until they ran out.

I think this was a Warner cartoon. I remember it. It also had a Douglas McArthur B-52.

**CapitalRadioTwo** · May 19, 2009

Originally Posted by the4thnobleman

Saying its Pixar's second worst is sort of like saying its the worlds second smallest diamond. It's still a standard much higher than most studios provide.

This is true, unless you are talking about Pixar's clear worst film, Monsters Inc. Don't even get me started on that.

**chrisat928** · May 19, 2009

I think this is the other one.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8tsJrApPw4"]YouTube - Le Petit Taxi Jaune de Tex Avery C'est pour quand le Petit Taxi Rouge ?[/ame]