Anilrgowda

It was only a matter of time before PIXAR Studios ran out of lovable mammals and amphibians to feature in their films. Moving on to stamped steel, PIXAR concocted Cars for the big screen, which was a smash hit for Disney’s do-no-wrong digital animation house.

Turning Cars into a video game makes perfect sense; the movie was computer-generated after all. Rainbow Studios took on this task for bringing these personable jalopies to life on the Xbox 360, and they seem like the right crew for the job. With MX Unleashed and Hoffman’s BMX game in their back pocket, the colorful, Arizona-based studio knows a thing or two about wheeled motion.

You’ll essentially be involved in a story-based racing affair when stepping into Cars for the first time. To make Cars more accessible to its diminutive demographic, there’s a “compact” version of the adventure, which cuts down the content to make things a bit more manageable. Either path begins with player/character/car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), who is looking for a win in the Radiator Springs Cup.

Radiator Springs is the fictitious, arid cartopia which serves as the hub of racing destinations in and around the town (Ornament Valley also plays host to many of Cars’s missions). Floating, flashing Event icons (color-coded for the various events) lead the way to the racing portion of Cars, which is broken down into Road Races, Piston Cup Races, and Mini-Games.

Road racing takes place all over the Radiator Springs, and can involve up to ten different cars, as featured in the flick. The idea is to drive safely and cross the finish line first. On-screen updates will let you know how you’re doing, while at the same time alerting you of bonus points that have been racked up for skillful maneuvering. For instance, you may drive a particularly challenging section of roadway cleanly and be awarded “safe driving” points for doing so. Placing high in races and rewriting the record books also earns points, which can later be used to unlock new rides, paint jobs, and art assets from the movie.

Similar to road racing in Cars, wheel-to-wheel action in the Piston Cup events can lead to big-time fame and fortune. There are five of these track-based events in Cars, so a lot is on the line every time the racing suit is donned, especially when McQueen’s nemesis Chick Hicks is in the field. There are also some engaging mini-games featured in Cars, which also move the story along and help to build up a reserve of points. The most notable mini-game is a tractor-tipping expedition that ties in perfectly to the Cars DVD extra Mater and the Ghostlight. There’s also a mini-game in which you’ll get to play speed trap as the Radiator Springs sheriff, while Lightning the mail man chases post cards all over the city.

If drudging through a story isn’t your idea of racing nirvana, then you can jump right to the Arcade area which features all of the racing events. Some cars and events will have to be unlocked through the Story mode, so there’s still some motivation to complete it first. Unlocked races, mini-games and races can also be enjoyed with a friend via Cars’s split-screen mode.

You’ll be piloting a bunch of different vehicles in Cars, but they mainly feel the same: arcade-like and easy to handle. There’s the basic acceleration and braking controls in Cars, plus a powerslide feature that really helps to make the tail happier. A boost button delivers a nice “warp speed” effect plus a significant jump in acceleration. There are also trick moves that can be accomplished easily such as the leap (down and up on the left stick) and driving in reverse (double-tap B to activate).

The combination of arcade and story mode racing is pretty entertaining for all ages, but there’s definitely a threshold for the pain that comes through repetition. The actual racing skill involved is pretty low, so you’ll become numb to many acts that feel like the same old thing with a new setting or car. On the plus side, Rainbow did a nice job with the arcadey handling, making it a nice match for the demographic for which the movie was intended. Rainbow also did a swell job making this next-gen version of Cars look at least like a next-gen kid’s game. The car models are spot-on when compared to the movie, and the high resolution rate helps the vibrant autos jump off of any decent flat-screen. There are some jaggies to contend with, but the little ones will be too dazed by the uber-bright color palette to notice.

Technically, Cars is a pretty sound game, but I’m not sure the Disney execs would let this one onto the big screen. Abrupt cuts of the musical score undermine the flow of the story mode quite a bit. You’ll also run into periods of slowdown (if particle effect counts are high) and some clipping that gets in the gameplay’s way.

While Cars may not fill all of the auto racing fixes of parents, there’s a strong bet that children of the “E” generation will catch the motorsports bug from Rainbow’s game. A few issues keep it from being one of those really enjoyable products from, say, Traveller’s, but in all, this isn’t a terrible investment of your fifty bucks, especially if it keeps the yap traps quiet for a few hours.