Cars

A trend has been occurring lately in that game developers have been making decent-if-not good-movie to video game conversions! I know that this might be a little shocking to many of you, but it is, in fact, true. The latest game to get this treatment is entitled Cars, based off the Disney movie, which has recently raced to your PlayStation Portable. Read on to find out more about this game.

The story goes like this: Lightning McQueen has recently moved his headquarters to Radiator Springs, the best racing place around. Not long after his new headquarters were setup trouble came into town by the name of DJ, Windo, Boost, and Snot Rod that wants a piece of this action. McQueen decides to take action against these troublemakers and challenges them each to a series of races. If just one of them doesn't win, this gang will leave the town forever. It is up to you to make sure that happens and keep Radiator Springs a nice place. Are you up to this task?

There are five different game modes for you to play in. First up is the story mode which allows you to compete in multiple races to see who gets to race against DR, Boost, Wingo, and Snot Rod. Each time you win each race you will unlock an addition tracks, and even five more cars can be won in this mode, which can be used in other game modes. Next up is the Grand Prix that allows you to choose a Cup to participate in, which has a series of tracks to race at. The cars that have the most points after the series of races win. Time Trail is when you race against the clock for the fastest time at a trial; you can earn new paint jobs at this mode. Custom Races is a practice mode that allows you to get the feel of the track to help you out in other game modes. Finally there is a multiplayer mode that allows you to race against your friends in Grand Prix races or even getting Postcards, and if they are collected they will give you a nice bonus.

The controls for this game are really simple to get used to. First off, you control the cars with the D-pad or analog stick. The X button accelerates the car. The O button will make your car go in reverse or will act as a brake. Pressing the triangle will allow you to look behind you. The square button will let you boost, which allows you to get a high speed really quickly. The L button will let you hop over various obstacles, and the R button will help you powerslide to help you get around those corners better. This control setup is really easy to get a handle on and you will be racing like a champ in no time.

The boost mechanic in this game is pretty important because many times it can mean winning the race. You can increase your boost in various ways such as simply driving around on the track, drafting behind another car, jumping off a ramp, or even jumping over boost pads. Speaking of drafting it is a good thing to do as you steal the boost form the other cars, but beware as they can do the same to you.

The graphics for this game are pretty well done. While this game will not blow your socks off with its visual prowess, it does get the job done on many levels. The environments that you will be driving around in has a very crisp look to them, from the dirt tracks to even the tracks that are located more in city scaled places. The sense of speed that the game has is really well done, as it feels that you are really traveling at very high speeds, which does create havoc as you try not to crash into other cars or even the track. The cars themselves look really similar to the movie counterparts, which is always a good thing, especially since this is a movie-to-game conversion.

One good thing about this game’s sound work is that the developers were able to get the same voice actors to reprise their roles for the game. The thing that is not so good is that there is very little spoken dialog throughout the game, so you will hear the same things over and over again, which gets pretty repetitive. The sound effects get the job done but they will not wow you. The same thing can be said for the music as well, which is good but really could have been a whole lot better.

Cars is rated for everyone. It will take up to 576KB for game saves.

Gameplay: 7.8
The game is really fun to play. The simple nature of it makes it a blast to play at home or on the go, even though it is on the easy side.

Graphics: 7.5
The graphics for Cars are pretty well done. While they are not as detailed as the movie (for obvious reasons) they still do a great job of keeping up with all the high racing action.

Sound: 7.2
The sound for this game is decent. What is a shame is that they use really good voiceovers, but they are few and far between. The music and sound effects and music are decent but I have heard much better in other games.

Difficulty: Easy
It is obvious that this game is marketed more towards children because of the simplicity of the game. It is extremely to just pick up and play.

Concept: 7.5
While Cars will not win any awards for adding anything new to the genre, kids who have seen the movie will love to play this game.

Multiplayer: N/A
At the time of this review I did not get a chance to test out the multiplayer portions of this game.

Overall: 7.6
Cars is a really solid racing game for the PlayStation Portable. What is a shame is that the game is extremely straightforward in its concept and execution which means that there isn’t a lot of variety other then just racing. Even though this is the case, Cars is a really good movie-to-game translation that would make a good home in your game library.