Cars 2: The Video Game Review (PS3)

When the first Cars film came out I thought the story was already old and retold a dozen times over. In fact, if you were to compare it to Doc Hollywood you would find them to be almost exactly the same. But, since it’s Disney and Pixar they did it in CGI style which made it worth watching.

Now Cars 2 has arrived and the story is expanded to international proportions and spies. Wait, what? Yep, spies who have to stop the evil Professor Z and his cohorts, the Lemons (get it? bad cars) from doing something, well, evil.

Thus we are thrown into the game which takes on the guise of a CHROME holographic missions room which has you competing in battle races, demo derbies and more.

Now as far as kart-like racers go, there is not much new in the game modes and some are very close to being the same thing.

Each car, of which there are 20 or so, has a couple stats including weight, speed and power. These determine how the car handles and how much abuse it can take.

As you play through missions you’ll get points which unlock more missions, cars and awards.

• Race - Just a standard race where you need to be fastest round the track in the alloted laps.
• Battle Race - A race with collectible power up weapons and defense
• Attack - Destroy as many other cars as you can in the time allowed. Defeating enemies recharges timer. Awards based on number of defeated enemies.
• Survival - stay alive as long as you can
• Hunter - Hunt down and eliminate Professor Z’s minions before time runs out. Points are awarded for downed cars and combos achieved.
• Squad series - a six event series that can have specific events chosen or can be randomized.
• Battle Arena - Multiplayer only - Competitive play to score the most hits on other players.
• Disruptor - Multiplayer only - Team play to defend your base from enemy attacks.