Cars Race-O-Rama (Wii, 2009)

As a parent, I'm delighted to see my kids be able to play a game that they recognize the characters from one of their favorite movies. I was dissapointed in the low graphics capabilites and the ease of play though.

What I mean by that is that for kids, as long as they recognize Lighting McQueen and their other favorite characters, who cares about the rest. I am able to really notice how the game designers skipped on taking the extra time for the background and more detial areas that I know they could have put into the game if they chose to.

The playability is for age 9 and up in my opinion. My 6 year can do the basic things like go, stop and turn, but he can't keep up with the task the game requires, even the very beginning one. The first couple of task the game requires was too difficult for him and I had to complete them for him while he watched. Granted he had fun as we worked it together, but I would have had more enjoyment watching him be able to do it himself. I let my 4 year old daughter give it a whirl and she lost interst in about 2 minutes because it was too difficult.

This is a fun game for your children to be able to play some of their favorite characters and after you complete some of the task and unlock more characters for them, and let them do the "free roaming" part akin to Spiderman, Halo, etc. where you have free roam of a map to drive around and do whatever you want to, they find that part fun. But if you want to work the story mode as I said, I think 9 and up is the bare requirement.

If you're an adult looking to buy this for a racing simulation, don't bother. It's no where close. Purchase one of the NASCAR series. This is a game designed exculsively for children who are fans of the Cars movies. If they don't like the Cars movies, they won't have the interest in playing this game.

Game is a little to advanced for my four year old, but a lot of fun. We enjoy playing this game together, as I need help.

Video games based off films usually tend to be uh.. Not so great. The first addition to the Cars racing titles was a fail upon epic proportions, this time around the developers fixed a lot of the original mistakes.

-Pros-

The controls are better and more fluent.

You're not constantly bombarded with idiotic respawning AI with horrible dialog. (Major fix)

The game features a lot more unlockables such as creative car customiaztion. From my experience the game is pretty fair and is never cheap.

-Cons-

All of the racing almost seems kinda bland and boring even with all the improvements customization available.
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Overall the game is enjoyable but not to a very large audience. The best console I could see picking this up for is the Wii mainly because it has the largest child-friendly audience and hardcore gamers will completely ignore a mediocre experience.

The Final Score

Presentation: 2/5
Gameplay: 3.5/5
Design: 2.5/5

Final Score: 2.75/5 - Nothing special

A child around the age of 5-11 will really appreciate this game, unfortunately the same cant be said about everyone else.

*PBXD

I bought the game for my special needs son who is physically 19 but is mentally about 6 and a delight. Despite his disability, my son seems to master video games easily and this one was the right amount of fun and challenge. He recognizes all the characters and they interact during play. He really likes the game (especially because he's LOVED the movie, "Cars" for years. All the characters talk in their character voices and there are several different venues to play. I highly recommend for younger players who have good dexterity and love the original movie!! I chose this older version over the newer one because this version actually has the original characters and the newer version introduces characters that a real "Cars" fan may not appreciate.

I bought this Wii game for my 6 year old grandson. He likes it but not thrilled with it. In his words..it's ok.
I found it a bit challenging and thought for a game based on a Disney character and the price, this game could have been more fun, especially for a 6 year old.