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Traditionally, movie licensed games are given to inexperienced developers, because publishers know that the game will sell well, regardless of how well the game is received by the public. They’re often a low risk; low budget endeavour to give teams the opportunity to make a best selling game. No matter how hard they try, the game is released with many improvements needed. Every now and then, however, the odd gem is released. Speed Racer, while not a blockbuster, can definitely hold it’s own against some of the best racing titles on Wii, like Nitro Bike and Excite Truck.
The story behind Speed Racer isn’t made clear in the game, for that you’ll have to watch the film, or any of the anime episodes aired in Japan or the US. The only background given to us, via the medium of video games is stats on racers and cards – hardly normal for a film game is it? Speed Racer is your bog standard racing game set in the future where tracks have been built hundreds of feet in the air and gravity has taken a holiday. It looks a lot like Wipeout, but plays differently. The handling, for one, is totally distinct. It’s got none of the twitchy-ness from recent titles, such as GRID, and doesn’t have the extreme precision accuracy of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Speed Racer is all about subtle movements to keep your ‘car’ in a steady curve around the bendy tracks. The controls are mapped out so that you can use the steering wheel peripheral if you want to; we opted to play with just the Wiimote, but they can’t be much different. The only useful buttons are 2 to accelerate and B to boost, the others are too pointless to mention. The manoeuvres are all handled by the Wii’s motion control. Tilting left goes left, and tilting right goes right: simple. The only slightly tricky thing was jumping. Because the gameplay is so frantic and adrenaline fuelled, you get so absorbed that a big lifting movement can throw you into the side of the track; ultimately slowing you down. Full marks so far.  The career mode is set up into 3 stages: championships 1, 2 and 3. Each championship has a number of tournaments within, which all have a number of races inside. Honestly, the campaign is a tad short, but with multiplayer being a heap of fun we couldn’t complain that much. You could probably finish it in one play-through, as it isn’t exactly hard. But you can’t blame the developers for aiming the difficulty at younger generations. The graphics are average for a Wii game, but they are bursting with colour. Think of watching Wacky Races having taken LSD just prior. They may be slightly blocky on in the background, with the trees (yes, we know, trees standing hundreds of feet tall? How far into the future is this?) and other objects in the background, but you’re constantly transfixed to the screen so you won’t take much notice. Each racer has his, or her, own stats, based on a combination of speed, handling and strength. While we could only tell slight differences between each racer, it was nice to have a couple of simple gauges rather than have to sift through multiple pages of stats that only petrol heads will care about. Something that is different about this title is the (awfully) named car-fu mechanics. Players can spin, jump and smash opponent’s cars to try and make them explode, or at least slow down. When a car-fu ‘move’ is successfully completed you score car-fu points which are added up at the end. If you get enough, the car-fu points can be translated into tournament points that will help you come out on top. When a race is finished you get a total of points (10 maximum, without car-fu points) if you come first, with 10 as second, and 8 as third. The one disappointment found with the title was how the game handled speed. When you’re going as fast as you can down a long straight you want to be able to feel the speed, see the motion blur as you glide past your opponent at 400mph, but it feels more like 200. Yes, it’s fast, but with the level of speed the game touts, it was a slight let down on what is a very good title. Speed Racer will blow away expectations. We expected it to be tripe, with awful graphics, terrible handling, and disgraceful presentation. What we got was a polished racer with enough pizzazz to warrant a purchase, even for those who haven’t seen the film, or don’t even plan too! If you have a Wii, and you’re in need a racer, take our advice and pick this up, you’ll be surprised. Score: 6/10
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