Cars (Nintendo DS) - Review by Andrew

Introduction

If you're old enough you'll recall the media frenzy around the first computer-animated movie: Toy Story. Unbelievably this was over a decade ago now but it was clear that PIXAR's mix of incredible visuals and strong traditional storytelling was a winning formula and the studio (in partnership with Disney) went on to produce some of the highest grossing 'kids' movies of the last 10 years. They're not the only studio, of course and this year alone will see around a dozen computer animated movies reach our cinemas, most of which will also reach our consoles. Cars is one such movie but what separates this latest effort from PIXAR is the fact that it's been a pet project of John Lasseter (the director of the first Toy Story) for some time now so with an Oscar winning animator at the helm we can only expect top class entertainment.

Gameplay

Each of the mini-games is played from a central hub and in this case it's a drive-in movie theatre with each new car representing a new game. These come in threes and once you've completed them, one of the Piston Cup levels will be unlocked, which is just about as close as you'll get to a 'real' race. We'll start with the mini-games though and although they all have a 'Cars' spin on them most are based on classic timewasters from the past. They start out with one that everybody is familiar with as it goes way back to the days of Simon (one of the first widely available 'computer games'). Here it's traffic lights and you must replicate the light sequence with your stylus. Ditto with some of the music inspired games in the package. In another you must move your vehicle around a rather packed car park until you manage to find the exit. There are some more original games too, such as the extremely challenging Tire Stacking, which must be done against ever increasing wind speeds and the Hydraulic Jump Jam, which challenges you to 'bounce' your car to impossible heights. Unfortunately there are also some fillers and some, for instance where you must simply avoid on-coming traffic by changing lanes that really belong in the free shockwave department. In other words, you shouldn't be paying for it here.

The Piston Cup is made available every three levels and sadly this has to be the weakest of the bunch. Rather than racing you avoid traffic by either changing lanes or jumping. Although you have an opponent he'll simply sideswipe you all the way around which makes for a very tedious race. Eventually your power will be depleted so it's off to the pits and yet another mini-game. This is a simple against the clock affair with your pit hands removing the nuts from your wheels within the time limit. This is also a Multiplayer section but given that this uses the weakest part of the game we'd recommend you stick to the single player experience.

Controls

Beside one 'driving' section the whole cart is a DS touch-screen exercise so get down to the 'Dual Screen Use' section.

Graphics

Helixe have managed to pull off a superb 3D engine with the cars actually managing to display a range of emotions much like their on-screen counterparts. It's a shame this couldn't have been pushed further to allow for animated cut screens or even some FMV from the movie but we can only assume the developers ran out of space on the limited DS cart.

Sound

As with the visuals the audio is up to scratch with some well thought out soundtracks for each of the mini-games. On the downside there's little in the way of voiceover work but we've come to expect that from the average movie tie-in.

Dual screen

Whether you are tapping, dragging or bouncing (yes, we did say bouncing) the majority of the game is touch screen although they did sadly leave the microphone out.

Final comments

While some of the mini-games are highly entertaining and very well designed there are just as many where you'll be glad when they're over. The real problem though is that it's just not what was expected: a racing game. Given the incredibly high production values it could have been one of the best on the system. Still there is some fun to be had with the tire stacking and the parking lot puzzle but with questionable replay value you'll really have to consider if this is worth your hard-earned cash.

Pro: Looks and Sounds Great.
Con: Not Enough Mini-Games.
Final score: 6.1

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