Pixar has earned the respect and admiration of moviegoers around the world for making films that, while aimed at children, entertain the entire family. The same is not true of their first foray into the Xbox 360's gaming market.
For the adults, the game offers some clever dialogue (mostly) from the voice actors in the film and a country-tinged rock soundtrack to enjoy when driving around. Unfortunately, that is about all the game offers for anyone old enough to remember seeing Toy Story in the theatre. The rest proves to be an extremely easy and shallow racing game with sub-par graphics, leaving limited enjoyment for anyone old enough to drive.
Control wise, the game does a decent job by sticking with the basics; gas is 'A', brakes are 'X', and handbrake is 'B'. The cars handle well, although perhaps a little too well. As experienced gamers and drivers will note, driving off the road can be a hazardous experience, as your tires just never grip quite the same as on the pavement. Cars gets this all too wrong, as the differences between driving on dirt and pavement are minimal at best. Being a children's racing game based on a cartoon movie, realism is not quite at the top of list of important features, but making the cars handle poorly when off-road would have offered an additional challenge that the game is sorely missing.
Another hallmark of racing games missing is car damage. Driving Lightning into another car or obstacle will result in an entertaining bit of dialogue from Lightning, and any other car he hits, but will leave no mark on the crashed cars. When the alternative is having small children burst into tears when Lighting explodes from one too many head-on collisions, lack of damage might have been the smart route, although it speaks to the limited target demographic of this game.
Graphically, Cars is a bit of a disappointment for a 360 title. While you never expect that a game will look as good as the gorgeous visuals that Pixar makes for the big screen, you should expect more than the last-gen graphics found here. The game does at least offer a decent sonic experience, as the voice acting is spot-on. The little touches like the comments from other cars as you drive past (or into) them make roaming around the map enjoyable. The 'hellos' from the other drivers and other cute touches cannot quite make up for the sloppy camera system, which allows some limited movement with the right stick; only to quickly pull the camera back to the angle the game wants to show. It is possible to change the camera view to one of three angles with 'Y', but the game frequently forgets the angle you desired after an event and reverts to the standard view. Likewise, while gamers can customize Lightning's paint-job to a handful of predetermined designs at a garage in town, the game somehow looses track of the paint job and often changes back to the original red paint-job between events.
Cars offers two main methods of play, Story Mode and Arcade Mode. With no Live support, Arcade mode offers races for one or two gamers on the same system. Story Mode is about what you would expect, a simplistic racing game with a handful of cutesy mini-games to break things up. Gamers take the role of Lightning, picking up just after the film ends as he begins his quest for a Piston Cup title. Players take Lightning on a series of events (with uncompleted events marked with a white circle on the mini-map) around Radiator Springs in order to unlock Piston Cup races. The events are quick, painless, and easy most of the time. Frequently they involve some form of a race around town, with only four other cars competing against you in a three-lap race. Thanks to a boost upgrade earned early in the game, the town races are a breeze, with average gamers frequently winning by nearly thirty-seconds.
