This game has proved that racing games can work on the Wii

When I popped in the disc for Cars, I thought that the game was going to be a total cheaply made mediocre movie cashin. I was really wrong.

I haven't seen the movie but I am assuming that the game follows the same story. A car named Lightning Mcqueen wants to go win the big championship of car racing and has to race in a variety of tracks to try to get to the championship.

The game features a story mode, a game that most games don't have. The story mode goes along with the movie. In between races you will be in a small town where you go around and find your next race, (feels very similar to the concept of Need for Speed). It's definitely rare to find a kids game that has free roaming but this one does.

After you pick your race you are faced with a cutscene and then you race. The races are quite generic, but they work. You tilt the Wii remote left and right to get your car to go left and right. It works almost flawlessly, and feels like you are actually using a stearing wheel. They didn't make the steering go to far left or right when tilting it just a little bit, and they didn't make it go not very far at all when tilting it a lot as other games have had. They made it perfect, tilting feels natural right when you start and you'll be learning the controls in no time. The game is actually pretty fast paced, and you'll be traveling at sometimes 150 miles an hour! They realized that since your going at high speeds, and they put the turning perfectly and doesn't turn too drastically, they made the E brake the B button. So when going around corners, oddly enough for a kids game, you will have to drift around it. It feels really natural, but it really slows you down a lot of times so it doesn't feel as good as games such as Ridge Racer. The drifting in the game is cool for adults and younger gamers who play racing games, but it may be a little too complex for kids. There is also a powerslide feature where your car gets up on two wheels and slides around corners. This can make turning easier too, but still, a little too complex for kids. The overall racing experience is very generic, and would be boring on regular systems, but since the Wii remote works so perfectly, the racing has a big boost in fun, and kids and adults alike can have fun with it.

In the middle of racing, to make the game less repetitive, they added some minigames. These minigames aren't really the true sense of the word, but they technically are minigames. During these minigames, the game doesn't switch its gameplay, you are still racing around. The first minigame you will be faced with is one where you go around the town in your car and find these post cards, when you find them, you get points. If every game counted a game like that a minigame, well, Tony Hawk would have a lot of minigames because the minigames feel straight out of the Tony Hawk series.

There is a little bit of car customization in the game, but very little. Don't expect Need for Speed customization. No, you can't get your duel engines for your duel spoilers in this, but you can change the way the car looks. Yeah, you can choose the paint job. Hooray!

There are two story modes: One for more experienced players, and a shortened version that is easier for less experienced players. Either way, the game is fairly easy, and both modes are kid friendly.

It's a solid, yet generic, arcade racer experience, but kids will love it because of familiar faces, and a difficulty that isn't too punishing. The gameplay never really feels different in the game and will definitely lose its flavor after a little bit for older people, but kids will be able to play it for a while, especially with friends. If you're looking for a game your kid will have a lot of fun with that doesn't have a violence in it, definitely go out and pick up Cars!

The sound in the game is perfect. You have the sounds of the car going, the sounds of drifting, and the sounds of regular breaking, all of which sound great. Then you have the music. They have a variety of music, which I am guessing are from the movie. They have bluegrass, country, rock, and even punk. It's a little odd having this assortment in the game, but oddly enough, it works. Then you have the voiceovers. There is so much voicework in this game.... Right away, you will hear actors that appeared in the movie. One of the first voices you hear is that of Larry the Cable Guy. It's really cool that they ported the voices from the movie.... a lot better than the last game I reviewed, Spongebob, where they didn't use the same actors for the characters.

They did spend a lot of time of the presentation. They recreated all the tracks from the movie onto the game and put the same graphical style as the movie, cartoony. The graphics are obviously not going to be as good as the movie, but they look decent. It really looks a lot like a gamecube game, with only it supports 16:9 and 480p. The voices actually fit with the mouths of the cars, (yes, the cars have mouths) almost perfectly which is something that you don't normally see in video games.

So should you get this game? Well, if your kid has a Wii and is at the age where he/she likes this movie, I would definitely say that it would be a good pick. There is an added multiplayer mode, and looks better on high definition tvs. The Wii controls really suit the game, and I think most kids who like the movie will have a fun time with this. If you are an adult, avoid this game!