Speed Racer: The Videogame Review

So here I am sat in front of my TV which is currently adorned with the wailings of Sidhe Interactive and WB Games' latest movie/video game offering of Speed Racer. Now the game itself takes place 1 year after the events of the movie, which I have not actually seen yet, but this apparently explains how the character of Trixie is racing in this title whereas in the movie she doesn't even have a car to race yet displays a measure of driving talent.

Now the characters and cars are fully represented as they are shown in the film including the film cast providing the voice talent for the game too which these days seems to be an obligatory part of movie contracts if a game is to be made from the film. Each character's custom ride seems to be accurately modelled after the film's counterpart from what I have seen from trailers and screenshots, as I said I've not actually seen the film, also each characters' car varies within the four attributes set to determine the speed, handling, acceleration, and weight characteristics of the car on the track.

The single player mode pits your selected character in the World Racing League, starting off in what is generally regarded as the rookie league, with the opening championship consisting of only 2 tracks both of which are only a couple of laps long. While racing you will notice a boost bar constantly filling up as you drive your chosen chariot around the long and often twisty, gravity defying tracks of this futuristic racer. Once full this bar will empty itself again but storing a full boost in a little icon just next to the bar itself, this boost may be used for its intended usage of increasing your speed further or it may be used in the action of healing your cars accumulated damage, this is also visible on the game hud.

Car damage comes in the form of nudges, shunts, poor driving resulting in running head first into that barrier of fail, or via the games combat system of "Car-Fu". Car-Fu basically consists of shunting the opponents car via straight forward ramming, side slamming, or spinning your car 360 degrees or finally by launching your car in the air in the attempt to land on the back of your opponent to flip their 4 wheeled chariot of internal combustion.

As you would expect for the Wii, the control system is motion controlled via the vanilla Wiimote usage or the Neapolitan flavour via sticking your Wiimote into your Wii Wheel, now there's basically only two buttons to use, the "2" button for your velocimatrix and the "B" button for boosting, though technically "1" is for healing your car whilst the "D-Pad" is meant to do things while performing Car-Fu but I couldn't notice any difference at all so in my opinion the "D-Pad" is as useful as a Rowntree's Jelly being used to suppress towering inferno like fires.
A reservation I have to add about the controls is that very little effort is required in steering your car while racing, it seems like the cars are able to guide themselves around the tracks requiring millimetres of actual input from myself, that is until I get relentlessly Car-Fu'ed up the tailpipe by the number of rivals and disgruntled allies I've constantly slipstreamed.

While on the topic of the computer opponents, during the game you can create alliances with other races to reduce your chances of them ramming you out of the way, concurrently you will invariably create rivals during your career and these drivers will make it their mission to ram you at every available opportunity. Another note I have to make is that no matter what sort of lead you may pull out over the opposition, there appears to be some sort of evil catch up system in place as you may have a 7 second lead but 2 seconds later your rival is sniffing around your rear bumper like a pig hunting for truffles.

Visually Sidhe have done a very nice job in presenting the game, everything looks bright and colourful whilst the game engine itself appears to be solid though I suspect that it would be better suited to a more traditional style of racing title than some futuristic racer but even so it still does the job admirably. To go along side the nice eye candy is also the soundtrack, some of which is also heard in the film, which adds to the tension of your races though personally it annoyed me but it works in the context of the game itself.

Sadly there is no four player split screen or online capability within this title, so multiplayer joys are limited to 2 players only which I feel is a big letdown for the game. In this age of online gaming, it seems that Sidhe have taken a step backwards by limiting to a split screen affair.

Overall Speed Racer is a good game, but not amazing, it's not for the diehard Gran Turismo simulation nuts, but more aimed at the younger age groups along with the more casual gamer. Maybe a rental first before purchase type of title but for around 18 quid it's probably worth a gamble.