Tag Archives: Racing

Myth Makers Super Kart GP Review

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“Myth Makers, Start your engines!” is how every race in this game starts and it is a good way to build up the Myth Makers brand. Even if you don’t want to remember the title of the game, the choice is taken away from you as soon as the race starts. After playing Trixie’s little Candyland adventure, I realized that I was in for the long haul with this franchise. Super Kart GP was the next logical step on my Ninjabread man tour and this game manages to be somewhat decent. It’s still at a really low budget and the controls are a mess, but it feels a little more like an actual game than the other titles. There is even a lot of content here…even if it is rather tedious.

There is no plot of course so you will want to just launch right into the races. You can play quick races against A.I. or a human player or you can go to the Grand Prix mode. Playing with friends is probably how you will have the most fun playing this title. That way you can poke fun at the title and really make the most of it. Otherwise, you’ll spend most of your time in the Grand Prix. There are 3 different speed settings and in those speed settings there are three different difficulty levels. After you get past that, there are 5 different cups for you to enter. Each cup has 4 stages and beating them all will give you a lot of bragging rights.

That’s a lot of replay value for this kind of game right? The stages aren’t long and each one can be beaten in around 3-6 minutes, but they add up. If that’s about 12-24 minutes per tournament and there are 15 in all, that’s not half bad. There is one catch though and it is a fairly big one. There aren’t unique stages in the cups. From my estimation, there appear to only be around 4-5 different stages. One or two of them may have a night time variation that is virtually identical, but that’s about it. A bit of a shame if you ask me eh? That means that the cups are completely arbitrary and the only real benefit is having the personal satisfaction of completing them. Otherwise, you could just play the stages in free play mode and it’ll be around the same thing. I don’t see why the game couldn’t have added more stages. “Have you ever made a game, DReager1?” No, but I sure have played some in the past and many more stages could have been added imo.

Ah well, let us move past that. One other aspect of replay value here is the fact that you can buy characters with the stars that you earn on the track. Run into as many of them as you can and hope that the computers don’t attack you or you will drop a lot of them. By the time you complete the first 5 stages you should have probably unlocked the first character. There are 5 unlockables I believe and getting them all wouldn’t take a crazy amount of time, but probably more than you are willing to put in. It’s also handled very oddly as the first character you unlock has the worst stats in the game. She has a 1 in two out of the three areas and a 2 in the other. Compare this to Trixie who is the main character and also has the best stats in the game. I believe that all 3 of her stats are maxed out, which is quite crazy.

Granted, speed may not be all that important to you with this gameplay. It just means that you’ll be sliding off of walls and crashing a lot more. Slow and steady is enough to win this race. You hold the Wii remote sideways and try to steer as you go through the levels. The controls are easy as pie, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are good. The motion controls simply don’t work well with the Wii so you’ll struggle quite a lot as you play. It’s manageable, but I wouldn’t call it that fun at times. There are items like in Mario Kart (Same style of item block) and if you look closely, you’ll notice a lot of other things that they rip off from the series. The item variety is very limited though and while you also have a final smash, you probably won’t get to use it. It simply takes too many stars to use and by then the race is over or you’ll have fallen way behind as you try to collect them all.

The soundtrack keeps on using the same tunes from the other titles like Ninjabread Man. People must have gone crazy while making these games since they will have been listening to the same song over and over and over again. Even if there was another tune or two in this game, you’ll quickly forget it as the main theme is burned into your mind. I’d say that the graphics are fairly decent compared to some abstract art, but I’ve seen Super Nintendo games with more creativity. You can always tell what is happening on screen, but that’s where the buck stops.

Overall, While this racing game may not be a bad steal if you can find it for a few bucks, you may as well get a better one. There is no shortage to racing games on any console so this should be at the bottom of a very long bucket list. The only real incentive to purchase this is Trixie. She still grins a lot as always and even has her iconic “Take that Bustah!” lines sprinkled in. It’s hard to tell what she is saying at times since the audio quality isn’t that good, but I’ll assume that the game will get patched at some point if it gets a remake. There is more to do here than in the average game of Myth Makers and it just barely keeps Super Kart GP from falling into the negative area.

Overall 5/10

Calvin Tucker’s Redneck Farm Animal Racing Tournament Review

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That’s a really long title right? It’s a little sadder when you realize what it’s actually abreviating. Calvin Tucker’s Redneck….hmmmmm. It’s all very intriguing and a little sad. On the main menu, they actually edit the title and take the word Redneck out. The game developers and marketing guys must have not been on the same page, but I suppose that it happens. This is certainly not one of the high budget games that you will look at and be amazed at how far it’s gone. The gameplay actually looks better on the Nintendo DS, but I can’t confirm that at this time.

When you enter the game you have a free play mode and tournament mode. Being the epic gamer that I am, I launched right into the tournament mode. There are about 5 tournaments if I recall correctly and each one is 4 races with the exception of one that is only 3. Each stage is only two laps so it’s actually a fairly short mode. Keep in mind that you need to win the tournament or you’ll have to try it again. I had to try again 2-4 times, but the game wasn’t very difficult. The controls were the only challenging part and you get the hang of them eventually.

The gameplay is fairly straight forward as this is a racing game. Get to the finish line first and you’re the winner. You hold the Wii Remote horizontally in this game, which is usually the default setup for all racing games. You gain items throughout the course that you can use to throw at opponents or give yourself a boost. Each character has their own special ability that you get to use every time you collect 8 coins. There are a lot of coins in each level so getting enough coins is a rather simple process. It shouldn’t take you very long at all. You really want to be a character who has a good special ability since it can make a big difference between winning and losing.

Almost all of the characters in this game are called Billy, which is a really fun concept. I forgot which Billy I used, but he’s the one who has a booster as his special ability. I highly recommend going with that guy for the tournaments once you unlock him. Alternately, having a special ability that throws something at an opponent can also be very useful when you’re in a tough spot. Remember to keep your eyes on the road at all times since even a small bump can really launch you off the track. Bumping into other opponents will typically hurt you more than them so I wouldn’t recommend that either. Just steer clear of everyone else and drive a solid game. So long as you do those two things, you should be all set to rock and roll.

As for the soundtrack, it’s a little on the generic side. The themes that play are what you would expect from a farm title. I would have preferred themes that took the racing a little more seriously. Something action packed and quick would have been my ideal choice for the game even if the actual gameplay isn’t very fast. As it is, the music doesn’t really help the game. Neither does the graphics. They aren’t downright terrible, but I have seen Super Nintendo games that have looked better so take that as you will. The character models aren’t very clear and it can be very hard to see an obstacle until you are already crashing, which isn’t cool.

A good thing to remember is that you can hit the minus button to reset your car after you crash. I didn’t learn that until the final tournament and it can really help you when you’re in a pinch so always keep that option in mind and it’ll help you a lot throughout your races. The controls are a little sketchy when turning, but they’re not as bad as they could be. I believe that the main problem is just that the cars are super weak so banging into anything will really cause you to do a big turnaround and get into some trouble. That’s where the reset button comes in handy.

There’s not a lot of replay value here and you can probably be done with the game in a few hours depending on how easy the races are for you. If you do find them to be very easy, then you can probably beat the game in 2 hours and have nothing left to do. This is not a game that has a whole lot of replay value and you may never pick it up again unless you have someone to play it with. The multiplayer option is its only form of replay value and that’s only if you want to play this over a better racing game like Mario Kart.

It’s easy to think of this as a bad game, but it’s actually a tough call between giving it a 4 and a 5. I got it for only a dollar or 2 so the content wasn’t bad considering that, but it’s almost not fair to lower the bar for the game on account of the price. At the same time, I could see the game getting a slightly lower score if I had bought it for retail price way back in the day. It’s safe to say that the rating has a small impact on what I ultimately end up giving the game.

Overall, The Calvin Tucker game is certainly one of the weaker racing games that I’ve played in a while. It’s better than Quad Kings, but that’s not saying a whole lot. I felt like the game didn’t really put a lot of effort into the actual racing, which is a little odd considering that it’s a racing game. I can only assume that the budget was incredibly small, which is why it doesn’t look or sound very good. The gameplay is the main part though and it’s not really that bad. If the game had been a lot longer then it may have been an issue, but it was a very short game so I didn’t mind it all that much. I think that I’m going to have to give the game a 4. It may be the best 4 that I’ve ever played, but I don’t think that there are enough positives to totally warrant a 5. This is one racing game that you may want to skip, but if you find that you have an extra 2 dollars lying around, maybe you should skip out on ordering that frappe and just buy this game. It’ll last you a little longer than the frappe after all!

Overall 4/10

Need For Speed Underground Stats and Records

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Stats Time!

Races 609
Wins 128
Losses 112
Win% 21%
Total Mileage 1009.14
Total Style Points 1677019
Circuit Races 156
Circuit Wins 47
Circuit Style Points 515009
Sprint Races 67
Sprint Wins 33
Sprint Style Points 117599
Drag Races 290
Drag Wins 27
Drag Style Points 103142
Times Totaled 6
Drift Races 96
Drift Wins 21
Drift Style Points 937847

Need For Speed Underground Review

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This is a game that I’ve owned for maybe 5-6 years at this point. It’s certainly been a very long time and I had played it off and on for a few years. Finally, I decided to crack down on it and complete the game once and for all about a month ago. After many races, I finally did manage to take the game down. I can safely say that it’s not perfect and some areas do hurt it, but as a racing game, it is very good.

The plot involves a new racer in town. This is the guy that you play as and he’s ready to move up the ranks. One of the ladies involved in the scene helps to get you ready and gives you intel about the other racers as you move up the ranks. You must become the best racer in every type of race to get to the end. After a lot of races, you are ready to fight the big boss. The main villain is someone who has plagued you for some time so you’ve been waiting for this. There is actually a secret final boss where a mysterious racer shows up and challenges you. The twist of who is inside it is slightly expected as there weren’t many characters in the game, but it’s still pretty neat. It’ll remind you of the final F Zero GX level.

First off, I have to criticize Story Mode. There are 118 levels in the game. That’s a whole lot of levels and while it is always good for a game not to be too short, this is simply overdone. It took me a grand total of 609 races to complete the 118 levels. If they were 118 original levels, that’s one thing, but most of the time you will be racing on the exact same tracks. Over and over again. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were only about 20 tracks given how often it would be the same ones. Sometimes they would be mirrored to try and trick you, but I count that as the same stage.

118 levels is definitely too much if you ask me. The levels are also decently challenging so just around 40-50 would have still made for a decently long game. Again, it took 609 tries for 118 levels, which shows you just how tricky these levels can be. Sometimes I would have to try a level about 30 times and would only end up winning because my opponent would crash and I would take the chance to leap to victory. I did enjoy that part though as a lot of racing games just make the A.I. completely perfect so they never crash into anything. It’s safe to say that this is more realistic as nobody should be able to navigate these levels without crashing or at least banging into the side rails.

Finally, my other negative would be the soundtrack and it’s actually significant enough to take away an entire star. It’s just downright terrible and they’re going for an underground feel. As such, most of the music isn’t enjoyable to listen too and I’m pretty sure that they’re not very appropriate. That being said, the lyrics are hard to hear since the singers are fairly bad and I ended up just turning the music off for most of the races so I would just hear the sound effects. Trust me, it’s not nearly as fun and it’s sad that I had to go that far.

Otherwise, the game is great as a racing title. The actual gameplay is a lot of fun and while there is a slight nitro boost, you’re essentially playing a normal racing game for the most part. That was a lot of fun and the controls are much smoother than Hot Pursuit 2’s. I can see the gameplay getting even better with the newer additions and this is the main reason as to how I could stick with the game throughout so many races. They would get tough as times and I would have to replay levels, but the gameplay was fun enough that I didn’t mind as much as I could have. I only learned about the power braking towards the end though, which is too bad since it would have been very helpful in a lot of the drift levels.

There is a lot of customizing to be done here and it’s typically required to upgrade your car every 20 levels or so. By the time that you are done, your car will be maxed out in just about everything and you’ll be moving at really high speeds. It’s a double edged sword of course as it can be easy to crash and instead of going with the best car, you may want to consider a slower model. I tried that for a while, but then I remembered that I love to go fast so I used the fastest car for the final levels. I’d say that it’s worth it unless the level has a lot of sharp turns.

The graphics are decently good. I definitely like how the levels look as well as the cars. The human designs are the ones that do tend to look a little iffy as they are pretty undetailed, but I suppose that most of the time working on this game was spent on the environments and cars. That would make a lot of sense so it’s all right that the humans don’t look great. The graphics aren’t perfect, but they get the job done and you can typically see the levels clearly although the overall game is pretty dark so you may need to increase the lighting.

This game was quite the adventure and I’ll definitely be enjoying a nice break from it. Once I’m ready to get back in the saddle again, I’ll buy Underground 2. The only problem is that I’ve heard that it has over 200 levels this time. That sounds even more extreme and I can’t say that I’m too enthusiastic about that, but I want to make it to the newer games already so I shall power through it.

Overall, Need For Speed Underground has improved from Hot Pursuit 2. The gameplay is great and that would have usually been enough to have given the game an 8 star rating. The soundtrack held it back along with the tedious story mode. Seriously, no game should take you over 600 races to complete. That’s simply overdone. The difficulty level was good as it was tough to complete the game, but not overly difficult where you will be wondering how the A.I. can move so fast. Some of the levels were a tad long though and I think that they should all be 3 laps at the most instead of 5-6. Let me tell you, replaying a 6 lap race more than once is no picnic. I definitely recommend getting this game if you are looking for a good racing experience, just have your MP3 player by your side during the races. There are some brief cutscenes which is cool, but there aren’t many of them.

Overall 7/10

Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed Review

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All right, it’s time to look at the sequel to the other Sonic racing game! I got the other one not too long ago so you’re probably wondering why I got this one so fast right? I got the first one for Christmas and I bought the sequel at the beginning of March so that’s only about a 2 month gap between the two games. What can I say…the first game was just that good! I knew that I needed the sequel and I have seen some declare that it is one of the greatest racing games of all time…maybe even ever! (By default as some have said that it possibly defeats Mario Kart 8. That was before the DLC though so maybe things have changed)

This game has more of a “story” mode than the other title as the main menu is called World Tour. There is no plot or story, but you do have to complete levels to unlock the next ones and you go from world to world. So, it’s a story mode without the actual story. I always liked this kind of set up because it really feels like you got to complete the game after you wrap it up. No worries though, we’ve still got Grand Prix Mode as well. There are quite a lot of levels in World Tour mode so you’ll likely be here for quite a while. Depending on what difficulty level you beat the game on, you can earn 1-4 stars per level.

That’s where the artificial replay value comes in. To unlock some of the final, extra levels in the last world, you must get a whole lot of stars. This means going back and doing a lot of the older missions on tougher and tougher difficulty levels. I thought that this was certainly a bit much, but for many fans that won’t be a problem. The gameplay is pretty fun after all so going back and playing the events again isn’t bad. Replaying the tournament missions is another story, but you don’t need to have literally every star to beat the final levels as far as I know.

World Tour is also where you unlock a majority of the characters and mods. The more stars that you get, the more gates that you can open for unlockable secrets. It’s a nifty system and it always feels particularly thrilling to unlock a new character or custom mod. As I mentioned earlier, we also still have Grand Prix mode, where you can play all the stages as they were meant to be played. Time Attack Mode is a given and naturally, we’ve got the multiplayer option as well.

There’s certainly a lot to do in this game so even without going back and doing old levels, you’ve got more than enough content here to warrant the 60 dollar purchase. Of course, you can likely get this game for a third of that at this point. The PS3 trophies to collect is also another piece of the puzzle to consider. I don’t plan on getting the Platinum here thanks to those tricky online trophies, but I got a decent amount of trophies before I put the game back on the shelf. Perhaps I’ll go back and get some more at some point, but for now I’m definitely satisfied. Each character gains exp when you race as them and you can work to max everyone out. I got Sonic to the final level as I used him for almost all of the World Tour events, but I didn’t get around to the other characters. It’s a nice incentive to make you want to play as every character. There’s even more things to do here that I haven’t touched upon so content is not a concern.

As for the actual gameplay, it’s definitely more arcade styled. The game definitely lives up to the billing there and that will decide whether you prefer it to the previous game or not. I actually liked the style in the other game more, but they’re fairly similar and this one’s still a blast. This game does introduce two new features, which are the boat and plane gimmicks. You can transform during the race at designated spots, which results in a fun change of pace for the gameplay and you get to really zoom through the courses. Perhaps a little ironic, but I prefer the traditional car gameplay to both the plane and the boat, but they are still fun methods of travelling around. You can grab items as you go through the course and naturally, the goal is to get to the finish line first. That doesn’t sound too hard right?

The A.I. is actually much better in this game than the previous one. I think it’s at a pretty good level. It’s tough enough that the levels are not a walk in the park, but it’s not too difficult that you will find it to be a little cheap. The controversial decision to make the computers input readers in Smash Bros was dicey as it is, but the computers here seem relatively fair. Just be prepared to bring your A game to the table for each round and you should be okay.

Graphically, this game certainly looks stunning. You can instantly tell that this is a PS3 level title as all of the details look flawless. Sega spared no expense for this title and you can tell that it came out back when Sonic was still a prominent figure in their plans. All of the levels are crisp with a great amount of detail and the oceans look especially good. You will certainly miss the graphics once you turn your TV off.

Audio wise, the game fares just as well. The stage themes are nice and cheerful, while also being fast enough to keep up with the gameplay. Sonic’s themes are typically the best by far, but we also get some more opera styled themes for the final levels. As this is a cross over, you can expect music from other games as well. While I know all about Monkey Ball’s themes, the rest of the series are all new to me so hearing their music is always fun. The city levels tend to have some really fun themes to listen too.

After a lot of thought, I do think that the first Sonic All Stars Racing game beats this one. At least, in terms of gameplay. That being said, it certainly loses in just about every other area and it can probably be tough to go from Racing Transformed to just Racing. The first game simply doesn’t look quite as good and there are less guest star racers in that game. Pure gameplay is typically what counts the most so the older one still takes the lead, but Transformed is certainly on the same level and deserves the hype that it has gotten. Now, if only they could throw Mario in the game so that we can call it a crossover!

Overall, Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed is a great follow up to the first game. The racing is as fun as ever and the graphics are intense. Aside from racing, some of the events will have you fight other racers or even dodge traffic. Dodging traffic is always a lot of fun for me and it’s easily one of my favorite events in the game. If you plan on doing everything that there is to accomplish here, you should be prepared to spend a lot of time playing this game. It’s certainly worth the money and I can only hope that Sega decides to make a third game to finish up the trilogy at some point. Sonic has definitely proved that he can hold his own racing title and Mario Kart has a legitimate rival now. I definitely recommend buying this game when you get the chance!

Overall 8/10

Excitebots Trick Racing Review

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excitebots trick racing box art
All right, let’s check out another game from the legendary 5 dollar bin! It’s games like this that make the bin so worth it for me because this is a hidden gem that I likely would have never played otherwise. It’s certainly not going to be the next Mario Kart of F-Zero, but Excitebots ended up being pretty fun and certainly worth the 5 bucks.

There is no plot so you are free to jump into the grand prixes. There are 5 different cups and each one has 4-5 different races in it. This title is a little different than most racing games as getting to 1st place is heavily encouraged, but there are other aspects in place. See, this game is also a bit of a stunt racing game as the amount of stars that you have in the end is what ultimately matters. Coming in first gives you an extra 55 as opposed to the 15 in second so that’s a good reason to get to 1st place, but you also want to do a lot of tricks along the way. No worries, they come rather naturally.

You get stars for drifting and bumping into other cars. If you decide to drive into a forest, you get a star for every tree that you dodge. The stars add up quickly there, but it is typically much more dangerous than the normal path so you have to decide if your driving skills are up to par. If you hit something, then you’ll quickly be taken back a little bit, which can eat up your time although it’s not all that bad. You’ll still be okay even if you crash a few times. Just make sure that you get the stars first. Naturally, you also have a nitro boost that you can activate quite often. You just can’t use too much of it at once or you will overheat so make sure to use it gradually and in bursts.

All of what I just mentioned was already in Excite Truck so let’s get into the new features for this title. This game placed a lot more emphasis on the Motion Controls than the older game. For starters, you’ll see various poles throughout the race. You will then have to make a motion with your Wii Remote depending on what color the pole is. Typically it will require you to make a sudden push forward or to act as if you are making a circular motion. To be honest, this is an addition that I definitely would have preferred to not have made the cut. Getting the motions can be as tough as you think considering the Wii Remote’s dicey reputation and it doesn’t add anything to the game. I can guarantee that the game would be even better without this gimmick although it certainly doesn’t hurt the game all that much. It was just a little unnecessary.

One of the new additions that I did like was the item boxes and tools that would appear. You can get items like some teeth to throw at enemies or a fishing rod to get some fish/stars. The items are typically fun and if you get a wrench, then you can turn into your true robot form. This was a good addition to the game and I’m glad that they added it. I certainly would like to play without any nitro or items as an option as well, but if you’re going to have some gimmicks, then you may as well add them all in right? You can play a lot of the individual minigames in minigame mode in case you really like one. There’s also a Poker Mode, but I decided not to try it out. It didn’t really pique my interest.

There are many other ways to search for stars during the race, but I’ll allow you to find those on your own. The actual gameplay is very smooth, which helps to negate the Wii Remote’s handling. The Wii Remote actually works well enough here. I would still prefer almost any other remote, but it’s passable as you have to hold it sideways to play this game, which has always been the best way to use the Wii Remote for a racing game. Each race is only about 2-5 minutes so they’re short, which helps to make them very exciting. Nothing’s worse than playing a really long race only to discover that you’ve lost and have to play it all over again.

The graphics are sound and the robots all look good. This is certainly no Mario Galaxy, but it’s still a big step above titles like Casper and Rudolph. The graphics are not bad, nor are they very good. They’re simply caught in the middle, but that’s not a bad thing. The designs still compliment the races rather well, which is all that I could ask of the title. The soundtrack is great, but I would expect no less from such a solid racing title. All of the themes are fast and intense, which lets you really feel like you’re in the race. Racing games have had a superb track record when it comes to the music included in them and this game does not disappoint here.

Completing the cups won’t take you very long. There are 24 courses and all of them are short, but you have to consider that you will be getting this game for a bargain price. Also, there is a good amount of replay value. If you get S ranks on all levels, then you can unlock the Super Excite difficulty so that you can play the stages yet again. Moreover, there are many things to buy with your stars. That’s where it gets to be a bit much though.

For starters, you have to actually buy the alternate colors for your vehicles. You have to buy the vehicles and then you also buy avatars for your profile and statues of your cars. This gives you a lot to buy, but earning stars isn’t so simple. For example, you will earn around 200-300 per race, but most of the cars are 2500-5000. I ended up with around 5000 stars when I beat the game so I bought one car. Imagine how long it would take to buy the 20+ profiles, 20 statues, colors, and cars. Certainly longer than I’d really be willing to play this game. I actually did bother to do the S ranks for Excite Truck, which shows how much fun these games are, but it’s not the kind of thing that I’d probably do now. Nowadays, Super Smash Bros is probably one of the only games where I’d actually go that far. Don’t get me wrong, the gameplay here is still a lot of fun, but I’ve got a lot of games to play so it’s best that I move on while I can.

Overall, Excitebots is a fun racing title. It’s certainly a lot better than you would expect upon looking seeing the cover and you should certainly give it a chance. It’s a short, but fun experience and the actual gameplay is quite good. It’s fairly unique for a racing game and you’ll have fun earning those stars as you beat the levels. The soundtrack is really good and the graphics are sound so this game really has no weak points. There’s also a multiplayer mode to boost the replay value a little higher. Yes, this is one of those 5 dollar bargain bin titles that is really tough to top.

Overall 7/10

2 Fast 2 Furious Review

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With Furious 7 out in theaters, it’s the perfect time to continue my journey through the series. I can’t say that I was impressed with the first one at all, but this looks like one of those series that gets better as you go along. In theory anyway. This one is certainly more fun than the first film, but it still falls into most of the holes that the first did, which prevents it from ultimately being a good film.

Brian has fallen from the good grace of the police for letting his target escape in the first film. He now has fun in underground racing so he has ironically become the very criminal that he used to hunt. The cops eventually show up with a job for him. He is to pose as a racer for a criminal mastermind so that he can help the cops get some evidence on him. Brian will need a partner and that’s where Roman comes into play. They’re going to need to drive hard and drive fast if they want to win this round!

All right, let’s talk about the improvements from the first film first. For one thing, the racing scene at the beginning totally destroys the scenes from the previous film. The cars were going very fast and the new nitro effects were a lot of fun to watch. The dark background of the night contrasted with the bright colors and made for a very explosive race. It was tough to beat..evidently too tough to be honest. The film could not even come close to matching that race for the rest of the film, but it was still a very epic way to start off the film.

The characters are also a lot more interesting than the ones from the previous film. The dynamic between Brian and Roman can be good at times. Brian is portrayed as an expert when it comes to this kind of operation. After all, he has been through this before back during his cop days. That being said, he starts to lose control of the mission whenever he sees a pretty face. That’s where Roman comes in. He may not be an old pro officially, but he knows how to fit in rather easily and probably does a better job of convincing the villains of their authenticity than Brian. He’s probably not as good a driver as Brian, but he’s good enough.

The film is typically a lot of fun, which is a shame that it fell into numerous holes. Where to start right? First of all, let’s go for the rat scene. Each of these films will probably try to have at least one big gangster moment to show us how evil the villains are. The first one had the scene where the villains forced someone to drink oil and this one has the villain pin a man down and watch as a rat starts to eat through his stomach. It’s a very gruesome scene to say the least. I prefer the classic “Held at gunpoint” trope as it shows that the villain is ready and the hero still knows that the guy is willing to pull the trigger.

Another aspect is still the underground/gangster feel that the films try to have. This results in a whole lot of unfortunate fanservice. The characters wear skimpy attire and are constantly making suggestive remarks. Roman and Brian naturally take part in these shenanigans as well, which is sad. What happened to professionalism? I fear that it died with James Bond and Captain Kirk taking office. It almost goes without saying that we also get language issues and birdies as well. The film should stick away from those things. It’s a writing issue and it’s one of the things that I’m hoping the films can change later on.

That may not seem like a lot of “holes” as I put it, but they are so frequent that there may as well be a dozen issues with it. The film simply can’t control itself. The main villain is also rather unlikable. He’s another guy who’s really just interested in getting rich and getting the girl. I would have preferred for him to have just been a good driver who wanted to get rich the quick way. He would still be a villain, but at least he would be someone that you could get hyped to fight.

The cops naturally look pretty bad as this is Brian’s show. A squad of around 20 cars can’t match up against two and they are constantly crashing. The FBI is fooled by the ole switcheroo tactic and they are also kept out of the loop a whole lot. You have to wonder why they always need to ask Brian for help during the beginning of these films, but the latter scenes show why they need him. On their own, they simply can’t stand up to the gangsters.

The final big scene where the heroes summon hundreds of cars is really the definition of plot hax. I really don’t buy that happening for a second. Getting everyone into the garage and into their cars while also allowing enough space for the heroes to fit in and get their car into the middle? That’s way too unpractical and elaborate to actually happen. It’s worse than the heroes constantly betting hundreds of dollars against each other every day. There must be a gold mine around there that we don’t know about.

I still have a problem with such large areas not being covered by the police as well. With their fancy satellites and FBI guys on the case, you would think that underground racing would really be a thing of the past at this rate. Of course, that probably won’t be the case as long as Brian is on the case. After all, he loves a good underground race apparently.

I was pleasantly surprised by one of the detectives making the right call at one point. After being threatened with the rat, he still managed to assemble the cops to have one last clash. I hope that he got his family to safety first so that he could really focus on this issue. It’s still too bad that the cops weren’t more organized, but at least the detective did the right thing. Hopefully he can live safe and sound now.

My main piece of advice for the series would certainly be to include more race scenes. We only got to proper races and one was just a back and forth route so it wasn’t a true race. Car action scenes are okay, but they’re not even close to being as epic as a race. A real race gets your heat pumping and you become ready for more. If the whole film had been epic races like the intro, it could have bumped it up a star. 1 star may not sound like a lot, but it’s something. Improving the races is simply one element to add to the whole. If it can get everything right, soon it could be one of the best racing franchises out there. (In movie world. F Zero and the famous Captain Falcon own the streets otherwise)

Overall, This film was better than the first one. It’s slowly becoming more of a respectable franchise, but it is really slow going. As soon as it gets rid of the suggestive themes and bad writing, the films will begin to rise up rather quickly. As it stands, none of the characters are actually likable. Brian and Roman are charismatic characters and they certainly have personality, but they’re way too into women, which distracts them from their moral compass as well as their job. I look forward to the FBI appearing to hire the heroes once again. I’m not sure when I’ll be seeing the next film, but eventually I’ll be onto the current one. Then we’ll see if it manages to live up to the hype or if the series has not changed quite as much as I hoped.

Overall 3/10

Cruis’n Stats and Records

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It’s stats time!

13/16 Cars

Stage Records

China Town 1m 40s
Race Wars 2m 11s
Times Square 1m 37s
L.A. Ghetto 2m
Central Park 1m 57s
Matibu 1m 56s
Golden Gate 2m 9s
New England 2m 3s
China Town X 1m 56s
Hollywood 2m 1s
S.F. Tour 1m 39s
Mulholland Drive 2m 23s

Cruis’n Review

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Cruis'n
It’s time to look at another title from the legendary 5 dollar bin. Let’s face it, it’s always an honor to pick out a game from that selection and I specifically went to a new Gamestop when I heard that they were still carrying this title. Cruis’n is everything that I had hoped for from the screen shots and while it is a pretty short game, it does have a decent amount of replay value to keep it relevant.

There are 13 races and you get to challenge them in Circuit Mode. Landing in the top 3 allows you to move onto the next stage. It is true that you can theoretically complete this game in under an hour since the average race is 2 minutes or less, but but you’re bound to lose at least a few times so beating it in an hour can still be tricky. Keep in mind that you may need to swap cars during this adventure as your first one will likely have some pretty underwhelming specs compared to the first one.

Winning a race gives you some spending money, which you can use to buy your next car. I bought most of them and ended up with 3 left. I guess I shouldn’t say “buy” though. When you get enough money, you automatically unlock the car. The final car needs you to have 2 million dollars and I ended the game with a little over one million. You earn 100 grand for each first place so just 10 more races would have been enough to have achieved that. I was tempted to do that so that I could say that I 100% completed the game, but there’s ultimately not a whole lot of point to doing such a thing so I took a pass on that. Perhaps I will go back for that someday.

The gameplay is pretty straight forward for a racing game. There are no items or real gimmicks here aside from the casual boost. You can boost three times and it gives you a decent chunk of extra speed, but it’s not too drastic so it doesn’t take the balance away from the game. Since this is an arcade style game you really have a lot of freedom as you drive around. You can break into a building and watch with awe as you look at the fun details. The fact that the developers actually designed the insides of the building is pretty neat since there’s a good chance that you could beat the game without ever going inside. Turning works pretty well and the gameplay is a lot of fun. The game will quickly reset you to the right direction if you’re spun around for too long so you never have to worry about stopping. Just power through to the goal!

Cruis’n is also purely a motion control game as you hold the Wii remote sideways and tilt to turn. Surprisingly, it actually does a good job with these controls and you’ll never have to adjust the Wii sensor or back away when you realize that the controls are not working. Everything works almost perfectly here and that was definitely neat. Once again, I have to stress that this isn’t your average 5 dollar bin game.

One aspect that I liked about the gameplay was the unique addition of random cars on the tracks. A lot of games like Mario Kart have experimented with other cars acting as obstacles, but not to the degree that this game throws them in. Most of the stages have dozens of cars blocking the way in the stages and bumping into one of them can critically hurt your chances of reaching 1st place. They are sometimes driving in the same direction as you or going in the opposite direction so you’ve always got to stay sharp. It’s why using your boost can be a risky endeavor.

The graphics are actually very good and that’s where I disagree with most reviews. The general consensus seems to be that the graphics are pretty bad, but everything actually looks pretty sharp. I am quickly reminded of the racing game that I used to play on the computer over a decade ago. The cars and stages are similar to that as well as the gameplay. I loved that game and still consider it to be one of the best racing games of all time. This title may not be quite as good, but it’s still pretty great and that goes for the graphics as well. Most of the game takes place in the night it is impressive to see how clear the game looks. I definitely have no qualms in this area.

The area where I do have some qualms with the game is the music. The soundtrack tries to be edgy or ghettoish, which results in some good tunes, but the overall music leaves much to be desired. It’s why I’m not even a fan of the average Madden title as the music gets a little too out there. For racing, I just want fast paced themes with no lyrics. That will let me race to the best of my ability with no distractions. In a game like this, you certainly will need to focus.

I also have to take away points for the suggestive content in this game. As this is underground racing, the game has a scantily clad lady holding up the “Ready Set Go” sign and she’ll also dance in the background when you take first place. Throw in the sad voice when you are going through the modes and it takes away some of the wow factor from the game. We definitely didn’t need this and more games should just play it straight if they really want to win. From the voices, the only one that I actually like is the creepy laugh. It pops up randomly during the game and that can definitely be pretty intense.

Now, the main reason why this is in the 5 dollar bin is probably because of the lack of content. After you unlock all of the races, then you can unlock a handful of cars. Unlocking those will give you some more options, but there’s nothing to do with them. Playing the stages is the only thing to do aside from the classic Multiplayer mode. You can upgrade each car to its maximum potential by participating in races with all of them, but even the average perfectionalist probably wouldn’t bother with all of that. So the multiplayer mode makes up the majority of the replay value, which means that you will probably want to have someone to play this game with. Otherwise, it’s certainly going to be a very short experience.

Overall, Cruis’n is a very fun racing game. Keep in mind that it’s only about 3-4 dollars for a reason, but it’s well worth the price. Given the fact that you could be done with it in 30-60 minutes, I could understand being disappointed if you bought it for 30. Even 20 dollars would have been a stretch, but for under 5 dollars I think this is sufficient. The levels that you do play are pretty great and the A.I. actually manages to keep things competitive. It never gives up and all it takes is one wrong turn to throw you from 1st to 8th. The graphics are better than expected and they easily hold up against any racing game. The suggestive content can make you wince, but it’s still not as bad as it could have been and it disappears once you are actually in the race. I definitely recommend this title and now I’m looking forward to seeing what racing game I play next. Let’s just say that we may not have to wait very long for that. Also, it should be known that I used the Pontiac Firebird during my playthrough since they didn’t have the Quest. It’s a very reliable car and I recommend using it when you play this game.

Overall 7/10