Cars Mater-National

Pixar has taken to releasing video-game sequels to its franchises, despite having no film sequels to tie them in to. The Incredibles endured the Rise of the Underminer, Nemo and friends tried to Escape to the Big Blue, and even the studio’s most recent film, Ratatouille, saw the release of the Cooking Mama-inspired Food Frenzy. Now we have the opportunity to pick up the continuing adventures of Lightning McQueen and the residents of Radiator Springs in Cars: Mater-National for the Game Boy Advance. While the premise is sound, the game’s execution leaves a lot to be desired, and as such will hold little interest for those outside the 5-8 age bracket.

There’s not much of a storyline here. Lightning McQueen has invited the top race cars from around the world to compete in a racing tournament held in and around Radiator Springs. That’s pretty much it. After a short still-shots-with-text story sequence, you pick your car for the first race, and the game’s problems arise immediately. While you can choose from a healthy assortment of the film’s characters to race as, each has virtually identical racing statistics (Acceleration, Suspension, and Speed), and no character is much better or worse than any other. That’s right: Mater, the boxy dump truck, is just about as good as Lightning, the sleek, streamlined stock car, and can easily beat him on the track. After every few races, an international opponent shows up, acting as a sort of “boss” race, but these races are no more challenging than any of the rest. Defeating the foreign cars unlocks them as choosable characters, but again, none of them are significantly better than any other character.

In fact, it doesn’t matter who you choose to race as, since the racing AI for the opponent cars is about the dumbest I’ve ever seen. In every race, I was able to take first place immediately and then finish the race without ever seeing the other cars again. This includes the final challenge level, versus the Ferarri-lookalike Giovanni; after passing him in the race’s first ten seconds, he never even managed to catch up to me (let alone pass me), despite several spin-outs on my part. Sure, there’s an Expert Mode that’s unlocked after beating the game, but it simply ramps up your opponent’s speed — which just means it’ll take you twice as long to pass them, never to see them again.

Even if the game is absurdly easy, it could still be fun to play if the gameplay mechanics are solid, right? If only that were the case. Touchy controls will have you over-steering, spinning out around every curve, and constantly finding yourself in the grass/dirt just to the side of the actual racetrack. The tracks themselves are little more than tunnels; with solid walls on either side of the course, you can never drift more than about a car’s width from the racetrack. These two factors, taken together, make the game feel like you’re trying to steer a toy car through a connected series of cardboard boxes, careening back and forth from wall to wall, all the way to the finish line.

Is the game entirely without merit? No, not entirely. The developers have managed to wrangle a pretty impressive 3D engine onto the antiquated Game Boy Advance hardware. Your car moves up and down hills smoothly, with a respectable frame rate throughout. In fact, at times the game looks more like an early PS1 title than anything 16-bit. And there’s plenty of fan service to be found for Cars enthusiasts, with nearly every character and location from the film making an appearance.

While it’s not the worst racing game I’ve ever played, Cars: Mater-National is a deeply flawed game — but the little kids the game is so obviously targeting probably won’t care. Anyone who can handle the complexity of Mario Kart would certainly be better off sticking with that far superior series, but if you know a Cars fan with a Game Boy Advance, and they’re of elementary school age, then there’s a fair chance they’d enjoy taking Lightning and the gang out for a race.

Gameplay: 5.3
Touchy controls mean that you’ll be sliding all over the place, but the AI’s bad enough that you’ll probably still win. The gameplay is probably too simplistic for anyone whose age consists of two digits.

Graphics: 7.2
The developers have managed to make a remarkably powerful 3D engine run on the Game Boy Advance. While the level design leaves something to be desired (Radiator Springs is a desert town, so most of the stages resemble dirt, then more dirt), you can’t fault the technical end of things.

Sound: 4.2
Mater-National on Game Boy Advance has exactly two songs: Menu Song, and Race Song. You will hear these two cheesy electronic songs, over and over again, for the duration of your playtime. Liberal use of your Game Boy’s volume control is strongly recommended.

Difficulty: Easy
I beat the game in one sitting, without ever having to fight to keep first place. In every race, including the final boss. Like I said, you unlock Expert Mode by beating the game, but aside from upping everyone’s top speed a bit, Expert Mode’s more of the same.

Concept: 6.7
Sure, it makes perfect sense that a game based on Cars (a movie about race cars) would be a racing game. Still, the concept of an international racing competition makes perfect sense for sequel plot material.

Overall: 5.1
The game’s easy to a fault, the controls are pretty loose, it’s got design issues everywhere you look, and there’s no real storyline to speak of. There’s no getting around it — this is a deeply flawed game. That said, real young kids will probably get a kick out of it, even if it’s just from seeing their favorite characters zooming around the track.