Cruis'n is back, and although better racers are out there, this game still holds some unusual appeal.
I have to say right off the bat, it really just depends on your history with the series. If you've never experienced Cruis'n before, you may be a little bit confused, so let me give you a quick overview.
The whole idea of the Cruis'n series is that you race other cars in an arcade style race that usually involves very elaborate locales and beautiful women that hand you trophies. That noted, let me get something out of the way:
Yes, the women in bikinis are back with a vengeance, and yes they still look extremely blocky, but they are there. I have to be honest, I disliked this at first, but thinking about the history of the Cruis'n series I thought it kind of fit in some very odd way. Even more, I felt good knowing that the women were actually images of girls from real life, so I didn't get the very lonely/nerdy feeling that I got when playing Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball : ).
Ok, so how about that gameplay? Well, once again Cruis'n has the various locales and the tracks are set up as sprint races (start here, end across town). It doesn't have any sort of open world adventuring to it, but there are a few nifty shortcuts that can make winning a race a little less of a hassle. This time around, you have a selection of multiple cars from real life like the Supra and Eclipse. These cars are able to be upgraded with new parts like need for speed, but the amount of time that you spend upgrading your car and making it unique makes you think that maybe this game should have had some kind of online mode.
For sound I was kind of indifferent about it, the menus for the game are very bland, with basic sounds and announcers that sound like they were torn from the previous games in the series. The cars don't sound great but they don't sound awful, and I never seemed to have a problem with sounds that were overused or shoved in my face. The music isn't licensed either, but neither have any of the other Cruis'n games had licensed music.
But see everyone really just wants to know about the graphics. All I have to say about them is that they really aren't as bad as people have made them out to be. Sure the trophy girls are pretty blocky and so are all the other people at the starting line, and the menus are awful, but the game isn't that bad. I wouldn't expect to see crowded streets or a world teeming with life, but for a game that's been resurrected from the grave it's not bad for how fun the game can be.
...And that's the most important part, the game IS fun. It may not have the online modes of some of the other games on the console, but for 30 dollars the amount of fun that you can have racing through these tracks makes it worth a buy. The controls weren't that bad, and I found myself wanting to come back to Cruis'n just for it's simplistic and addictive arcade style.
All in all, I wouldn't make it the top game you want for this holiday season, and it doesn't have to go to the top of your Gamefly rental list. But, if you are looking to play a racing game that has a neat style and is fun at it's basic level, then you can't go wrong with checking out Cruis'n for Wii.