Cars is a video game lightly based off of the Pixar movie, “Cars”; hence, the title of the game. The one that I had growing up was the one for the GameBoy Advance. The GBA was one of eight systems it was released on, not including PC, because of the fact that it was released around the start of the new generation of consoles. But with it being on the GameBoy Advance, it gave them much less to work with compared to the much more powerful systems that it was on, but it actually didn’t do too bad considering it is mostly based off of a movie.


   Now, if you couldn’t tell, Cars is a racing game. You chose between four different characters; Lightning McQueen, The King, Chick Hicks, and Doc Hudson; and you can choose their colors as well. All of them race differently on the track as well. For instance, Chick is very fast, but hard to control. But its perspective is not the regular 3rd person angle, with you positioned behind the car. This one has a camera that is fixed in one place for the whole race, like Super Sprint in a way.


   Now, this had its advantages and disadvantages. It made it really hard to know what is coming up, but before your turn, you will get an arrow indicating the direction you will need to go, but it is still tough to pull it off. But it was probably a good thing that they did this, because I feel that the environment would look bad with constant angle changing. But the biggest down side to this is you will occasionally come upon speed panels and slow panels, and unless you know the track well, it’s almost pure chance.


   And there is something else that makes this game different from other racers as well. Your character is always moving, meaning you don’t need to use the acceleration to go forward. This helps to go around tight turns, so you don’t have to continuously pump the breaks, or simply glide around the corner.



   
Gameplay: 7.5 – Like I mentioned, the camera angle is very unique. But it was probably better than the alternative; with that being the classic angle, where if you played Mater-national (another Cars based game on GBA) it was almost impossible to see in front of you. So, you are placed in a hub, and you can access every level in the game from there.

Also, some of these are played differently than others. I will go over each one. They are time trials, challenges, circuit races, and Piston Cup races. Plus, on all of these excluding Piston Cup, you can unlock screenshots and new colors by collecting coins on tracks you have already beat. Not really another mode, but add a little something to the game.


   On time trials you will try to complete the track in a set amount of time. There will be nobody racing against you, but there will be pedestrian cars, which are even more annoying, so you must try to get around them. This kind of makes me wonder why you are racing when there are still normal cars driving on it. This mode is fun for trying to get a good record, especially when seeing which characters you can do it the best with.


   Then there is challenge, where you will challenge the King, Doc, or Chick, in a 1-on-1 race. If you win, you will unlock that character. These are pretty much the same as time trials, but now you will be going against another car as well. But you will not want to bump into them, because practically any contact will make you spin out, making you lose lots of speed and time.

And then there are circuit races where you will race random cars in a three lap race. These I found to be the most fun, but they were dragged out because of their length. But they are fun to do anyways, and for me, they had the most replay ability. Although it is still pretty much the same, with the extra CPU drivers, it seems to add a bigger sense of chaos to the game.


   And then finally, the Piston Cup races, where you will race around a simple, more NASCAR based track, about seven times. This is the only one that is really any different from the other modes, because here, there are no speed or slow panels, and it introduces a new feature, drafting. What you do is drive behind another car, building up a green bar under your character. You can use this like a turbo to boost ahead of other people. The bar will run down quickly once you are no longer behind the car, so you have to use it fast. This is a really fun thing to use, but I feel it wasn’t used to its full potential, being used on a few select tracks. But when you can use it, it is fun.



Difficulty: 5 – I found this game to be kind of middle-of-the-road when it comes to difficulty. Depending on your ability to drift, and your reflexes to see stuff that appears a millisecond before you come upon it can affect your view on the difficulty. But there are two parts that might make this game a bit harder than what I think. And that could be because of two reasons, which are these: one, the computer players. They are practically invincible. Touching them will make you spin out, and there is almost no way to do the same to them. It makes it feel like the game is cheating you.


   Two, the controls are hard to get used to. If you are doing a U-turn, you might find it hard to finish it off right, and you will either turn too tight, or go almost straight with an under turn. But something I liked about the controls was if you were just a little off center of the road, it would auto correct you, and put you straight on the road, which was a really nice addition. But luckily, you most likely still won’t have trouble winning, because the CPU players are pretty bad, and don’t have different difficulties, meaning they are stuck on easy for the whole game pretty much.



Graphics: 7.5 – The graphics were pretty well done for a GameBoy Advance game. I thought Lightning McQueen looked amazing with all of his alternate colors, and really the only bad looking character was Red Doc Hudson, where he has red eyes. But beyond the characters, I don’t see much to like. Every track looks the same. Dirt, a bit of paved road, and more dirt, is the basic design for every track. Since it takes place in Radiator Springs, it’s supposed to be a dessert, but I can’t stand that there is almost no color on the tracks. They look dull and boring most of the time.


   But a small thing that I liked was the screenshots. They looked like they could belong on a DS game. Now, it’s not much, but it does look good. But really, considering what they had to work with, with the whole desert place, they did a fair job. They did a good job of making a 2d environment look like a 3d style game, at least in my opinion.



Sound: 6.5 – If you remember the beginning of Cars, there is a song that seems to fit perfectly with the whole racing aspect of that first scene. I was originally expecting that same kind of good fast racing music, but what I found made me pretty disappointed. First off, there are only two tracks that are used, from what I remember. One is a repetitive song that for some reason really annoys me. The sounds that are used just irritate me for some reason.


   The other song, while also a short looping song, at least sound like it could be used in a video game where something actually happens. It also has a little bit of that annoying sound that the other one did, but it was more a background sound, so it wasn't as bad in this one.



   And the other sounds are those of the engines while racing. They isn't really much to say about it though. Normal sounds that you hear while racing. One neat little thing that they did with it though was each character had a different sounding engine. For instance, Chick sounds like he has a big, new engine, while Doc sounds like he's using an old, beat down engine. Although this is a small feature, it's a very good one.



Addictiveness: 8 – Depth: 4 – For me at least, this was one of those games where I wanted to play the whole way through in one sitting. And unfortunately, this happens to be a game where that is possible. With only fifteen levels in all, you could easily complete this in about an hour, not including all the extras, but I’m sure that’s possible as well. It’s a fun game that because of its simple gameplay, will keep you at it. But once you beat it, there isn’t much else to do. You won’t really ever want to go back to it, because the replay value just isn’t there. There isn’t really much of a sense of achievement after beating it. So if you have an open hour with nothing to do, this is a good game for you.



Story: 5 – The story takes place after the Movie. So here, you will race in the Radiator Springs Cup, and then throughout the game, you will unlock the Piston Cup races, which is your true goal in the game. So as you can see, not really much of a story, and not really anything to it. And there are no twists or anything to it, but it’s not like that should really be expected anyways, so it gets a neutral rating.



Overall: 8.2 – Although it might have seemed like I was bashing the game in the review, it isn’t really a bad game, but there are some obvious flaws, and ways that it could have been better. But it is fun to race around being Lightning McQueen, and winning the Piston Cup, and is a fun game to play while it lasts. Obviously, it is not as good as the other systems it was on, but it did a good job with what they had to work with, especially considering that it’s based off a movie.



Thanks for reading this review! Don’t forget to rate this review. God bless!

patar4097 : Nice review patar! Good work.


It was more than 1000 words. you went into depth and detail of every word. Plus it had absolute good grammar!

Wow! Great review. I think it's the longest review i ever saw. Great work! 

patar4097 : Great Review! I enjoyed reading this Review! Well done and keep it up!

That was AWESOME! I loved reading it! I want more reviews to be like this!

Barathemos :
TornadoMudkip :
jaws123 :
VaradDude630 :

Thanks for all the positive feedback! Be sure to rate it on the game page. I've been trying to get more people to start rating everybody's reviews so that they all get fair ratings.

This review is amazing, it should be in a frame somewhere, it is simply amazing. The detail and grammar you use is great and the amount of work you put into your review to make it such good quality is great. The length is perfect and I bet you got like half a billion Viz for it. I really think that this review is both detailed and interesting which is good to convince and hook the reader into playing the game because you make it sound like it is the game to play, plus it is organized and broken down into categories which makes it easier to read, so really awesome work on this review! Keep it up and keep making more great quality reviews!

Razor-987 : Thanks! I did put in a lot of time on it. Almost three straight hours of constant work. I tried to get it done by the end of the month, but because I was on vacation, that didn't happen. Thanks for the positive feedback!