A bizarre twist to the world of racing games, that may be shallow but is an all around joyride while it lasts
User Rating: 8 | Speed Racer WII
Do you remember that classic anime from the 60's about a boy and his awesome race car? You do? well this game is nothing like that. It may bear the same name but this is not that simple cartoon you grew up with. Speed Racer the video game is based on the Wachowski brothers film from 2008 and takes place in a high tech society, where stunt racing is the greatest sport in the world. Speed Racer the video game starts you off with a few characters that you may be familiar with if you watched the series including, Speed himself, Racer X and even Trixie. However Speed's prized race car, the Mach 5 is missing in action, and he is given the movies' Mach 6 instead. Speed Racer the video games' sense of speed is amazing. All cars move at an incredible pace, toping speeds of over 300 mph. This game does not operate like a any other racing game because a new tactic is present, called "Car Fu" which lets you attack other drivers in array of flips, jumps, bashes, tail tosses and other car acrobatics that give you points based on the difficulty of the move. Car Fu definitely is an interesting idea and separates Speed Racer from other racing games. When you start the game your given the option of Grand Prix, free race, and time trials under the single player option. Grand Prix consists of several races around tracks based on locations from the movie. Though there may be only a handful of locations in the game, there are many variations to the actual tracks, providing some sort of variety. Grand Prix starts off with 3 race classes, each one getting progressively harder. Before each race in Grand Prix your given an option to make allies with other racers. Some may request you to be an alley and others can be sent requests. All characters have allies to start off with based on who you are. (for example, Speed will always have Trixie as an alley) and characters also have a rival that you score double points from attacking. Allies wont attack you and will try to attack your rival. However if you attack an alley, you will get a penalty and have points deducted from your score, and your alliance with the alley is broken. Its an interesting system that breaks the monotony of racing and provides some strategy to the game. You must be cautious when choosing allies because having to many can lower your chances of winning since so many are on your side and you get a penalty for attacking them. Having too little allies on your side leaves you open for attack and you wont see it coming. The free race and time trail modes are straightforward and operate as they do in any other racing game. The game provides excellent voice acting during the races as you see comic book style drawings of each character flash across the screen as you attack and interact with them. Speed Racer is a great concept that needs to be taken further. Aside from a lack of tracks and multiplayer variety this is a great game that you should definitely play, even if its just to rent
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