''Cars'' (also known as ''Cars: The Video Game'') is an open world

racing video game Racing games are a video game genre in which the player participates in a racing competition. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to fantastical settings. They are distributed along a spectrum between more realistic rac ...

, based on the 2006 Pixar film of the same name. Developed by

Rainbow Studios Rainbow Studios is an American video game developer based in Phoenix, Arizona, best known for developing offroad racing games, such as '' Motocross Madness'' and the ''MX vs. ATV'' series. It was established by Earl Jarred in 1986 under the nam ...

, it was released for the

GameCube The is a home video game console developed and released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in PAL territories in 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 (1996), and predecessor of the Wii ...

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, 2 ...

Nintendo DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens working in tan ...

, and PSP in June 2006, with versions for the

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation ...

and

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...

released later that year. The Wii version includes functionality geared towards its

Wii Remote The Wii Remote, also known colloquially as the Wiimote, is the primary game controller for Nintendo's Wii home video game console. An essential capability of the Wii Remote is its motion sensing capability, which allows the user to interact with ...

controller, and was a

launch game This list includes terms used in video games and the video game industry, as well as slang used by players. 0–9 A ...

for the system. Taking place after the events of the film, the player controls the protagonist

Lightning McQueen Montgomery "Lightning" McQueen is a fictional anthropomorphic stock car who is the protagonist of the animated Pixar franchise '' Cars'', primarily voiced by actor Owen Wilson. His appearances include the feature films '' Cars'', ''Cars 2'', and ...

as he participates in the new racing season with the end goal of winning the Piston Cup for the first time in his career, while also racing and training with the local community of Radiator Springs. In the PSP version, the player again controls Lightning McQueen. After meeting and narrowly avoiding a collision with the Delinquent Road Hazards gang, he challenges them to a race to which they agree. The console versions feature the full voice-over cast from the film, including the likes of

Owen Wilson Owen Cunningham Wilson (born November 18, 1968) is an American actor. He has had a long association with filmmaker Wes Anderson with whom he shared writing and acting credits for '' Bottle Rocket'' (1996), '' Rushmore'' (1998), and '' The Royal ...

Michael Keaton Michael John Douglas (born September 5, 1951), known professionally as Michael Keaton, is an American actor. He is known for his various comedic and dramatic film roles, including Jack Butler in ''Mr. Mom'' (1983), Betelgeuse in ''Beetlejuice'' ( ...

Paul Newman Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008) was an American actor, film director, race car driver, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, three ...

, and

Larry the Cable Guy Daniel Lawrence Whitney (born February 17, 1963), known professionally by his persona Larry the Cable Guy, is an American stand-up comedian, actor, producer, country music artist, and former radio personality. He was one of the members of the ...

. However in the PSP and DS versions, Lightning McQueen is instead voiced by Keith Ferguson. The home console and PC versions received positive reviews from critics, though the GBA version met negative reception, This may be due to it being at a strange angle and being hard to know where to go or what to do. This game was followed by two sequels; ''

Cars Mater-National Championship ''Cars Mater-National Championship'' is a 2007 racing game published by THQ for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, and Wii. The game received mixed reviews from critics. A sequel, ''C ...

'' (2007) and ''

Cars Race-O-Rama ''Cars Race-O-Rama'' is a racing video game based on the ''Cars'' franchise that was released on October 12, 2009. It is the sequel to ''Cars Mater-National Championship'', which was released on October 29, 2007. Gameplay ''Cars Race-O-Rama'' i ...

'' (2009).

Gameplay

The console versions of the game are set in the fictional town of

Radiator Springs Radiator Springs is a fictional small Arizona town and the principal setting of the Disney/Pixar franchise ''Cars''. A composite of multiple real-world locations on the historic U.S. Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles, it is most prominently f ...

, where it takes place after the movie. The player must compete in 19 road races, 8 mini-games, and 5 piston cup races to help

win his first Piston Cup. In the PSP version, the game presumably takes place on an alternate timeline. The player must compete in 13 races, as well as 5 boss races, to help Lightning McQueen claim Radiator Springs back from the Delinquent Road Hazards gang. The game takes place in a open world in the vein of ''

Need for Speed ''Need for Speed'' (''NFS'') is a racing game franchise published by Electronic Arts and currently developed by Criterion Games, the developers of ''Burnout''. The series generally centers around illicit street racing and tasks players to com ...

'', ''

Grand Theft Auto ''Grand Theft Auto'' (''GTA'') is a series of action-adventure games created by David Jones (video game developer), David Jones and Mike Dailly (game designer), Mike Dailly. Later titles were developed under the oversight of brothers Dan Hous ...

'' and ''

Midnight Club ''Midnight Club'' is a series of Racing video game#Arcade-style racers, arcade-style racing video games developed by Rockstar San Diego (formerly known as Angel Studios) and published by Rockstar Games. ''Midnight Club'' is similar to the ''Mid ...

'' and features ten playable characters from the film (16 in the PSP version), all voiced by the original

voice talent Voice acting is the art of performing voice-overs to present a character or provide information to an audience. Performers are called voice actors/actresses, voice artists, dubbing artists, voice talent, voice-over artists, or voice-over talent ...

. The game also features a number of

minigame A minigame (also spelled mini game and mini-game, sometimes called a subgame or microgame) is a short game often contained within another video game. A minigame contains different gameplay elements, and is often smaller or more simplistic, than th ...

s and items for the player to collect.

Development

On May 8, 2002, video game publisher

THQ THQ Inc. was an American video game company based in Agoura Hills, California. It was founded in April 1990 by Jack Friedman, originally in Calabasas, and became a public company the following year through a reverse merger takeover. Initi ...

acquired the rights to the next three titles from

Pixar Animation Studios Pixar Animation Studios (commonly known as Pixar () and stylized as P I X A R) is an American computer animation studio known for its critically and commercially successful computer animated feature films. It is based in Emeryville, Californ ...

– ''

Finding Nemo ''Finding Nemo'' is a 2003 American computer-animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Andrew Stanton with co-direction by Lee Unkrich, the screenplay was writ ...

'', ''

The Incredibles ''The Incredibles'' is a 2004 American computer-animated superhero film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Written and directed by Brad Bird, it stars the voices of Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah V ...

'', and ''Cars''. ''Cars'' was announced on February 7, 2006, and was later announced for Wii and Xbox 360. On June 6, 2006, THQ announced that the game would be shipping out for all platforms except Wii and Xbox 360. The Wii version was released on November 19 as a launch title for the console. The current-generation and 360 versions were developed by Rainbow Studios, while the Wii version was developed by Incinerator Games.

Reception

''Cars'' received "generally positive" reviews. ''

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

'' gave 7.0 out of 10 for Xbox 360 and Wii versions, 7.6 out of 10 for the GameCube and Xbox versions, and 7.4 out of 10 for the PSP version.

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

gave 65 out of 100 for the Wii version, 54 out of 100 for the DS version, 73 out of 100 for the PC version, 71 out of 100 for the PlayStation 2 version, and 70 out of 100 for the PSP version. The PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS releases of ''Cars'' each received a "Platinum" sales award from the

Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment (Ukie) is a non-profit trade association for the video game industry in the United Kingdom (UK). Ukie was originally founded as the European Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), and the ...

(ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies per version in the United Kingdom. In total, the game sold more than 8 million copies as of May 2007. The GBA version was criticized as being "the worst version of the game" because of its incredibly short length, zoomed-in camera, a lack of a multiplayer mode, and a lack of any depth.

References

External links

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