Looney Tunes Racing Review by: EX Palen - 6.5/10
That's all, folks?Weapon-based kart racing saw a massive expansion with the fifth generation of consoles. Following on the legacy of Super Mario Kart, many other characters grouped their crews together to race in some kind of wheeled machines in a racetrack of sorts created in their own universe and environment.
In this occasion, the old-school legendary crew of the Looney Tunes has grouped together to race some awkward machines in even more awkward environments, accompanied by their traditional armament consisting of pies, anvils and bombs. It also featured trigger-like hazards on track, rather unique by then, to make tracks more dangerous. But just how good this game was? We’re about to see…
GRAPHICS: 8
Graphics weren’t precisely the best regarding characters, but regarding environments it’s another thing. While characters looked not only heavily polygonal but also quite distorted, environments were a bit more detailed and better looking. The comparison is very easy with the cameo appearance of Roadrunner in stark contrast with the sprites for all the characters eligible for racing. Besides, the amount of detail some tracks had, like You Belong in Pictures, was really amazing compared to more sober tracks like Planet X or the Deserts.
SOUND: 7
The music was very much on the line with the Looney Tunes show. There’s a wide variety of instruments being played instead of the electronic sounds that were starting to monopolize gaming music. That’s a nice quirk, specially with the effect that sped up and pitched up the music on the last lap to make things more frantic.
Game sounds were also on the line with the show, mimicking what we would hear in a TV episode. No strange tries to introduce different sounds, the classic ones have prevailed: the thunder, the bomb, the anvil and of course the pies. Also, just like in the show, special tunes played whenever you hit a turbo pad, which in my opinion were a bit out of place because it distorted quite heavily the pace of the background music.
On a last note, character voices were kind of nice. I haven’t followed the show in English, so I can’t say for sure, but the Spanish ones I’m used to were reproduced with great care. Maybe the translations could be off sometimes, but in terms of audio they were fine.
ADDICTIVENESS: 6
It’s kind of addictive to race in all environments and even the exclusive 2-player tracks and battle arenas. However, it gets hampered by the fact that all characters behave equally in all stats, with just a couple noticeable exceptions. This means that you basically choose a character based on personal liking or whatever, not because they perform better in certain areas. As a racing game, and basically any kind of game, that’s a big failure, while the balanced performance can produce close races due to player skills you’re not able to pick one character over another to turn a situation in your favor. Besides the multiplayer functions, the game is barely addictive.
STORY: 0
Just the average racing game where you have to become champion. The only quirk is that Smokey will grant the champion a wish, which turns out in extremely funny cutscenes. However, there’s no true story nor there’s any kind of plot, and it’s not like the TV show had one to start with, so this is basically a reunion with the purpose of having fun.
DEPTH: 5
The championship mode isn’t precisely deep, with just three cups to clear. To fully complete the game, you will also need to win each race in the single race mode, which includes a few exclusives not present in the cups, and of course clear the challenges. These challenges are the main threat, for they sometimes require tasks that aren’t easy to achieve. Despite that, there aren’t a ton of challenges to beat, so all in all the game can be cleared in some 120 minutes. It could definitely offer more than just this.
DIFFICULTY: 7
First of all, the controls are absurdly easy. No need to brake, just learning how drifts work, and all that is left are the trigger-like hazards and the weapon system. The tracks aren’t excessively difficult to master, which added up to everything else makes this game quite easy to learn and even master.
The cups aren’t hard to beat. Surely the points system can make it a pain to deal with in some races or scenarios, but it’s nothing extremely difficult to overcome. A smooth driving around the track with a wise use of items should do the trick and let you clear what should be the game’s main mode. Winning on each track separately, even with the exclusive tracks, should not be that hard either.
Like I said above, the real threat are the challenges. They mostly require you to finish in the top by fulfilling certain tasks, like not crashing more than thrice in a race, hitting your opponents with items a determined number of times, collecting some letters that tend to be off the ideal track path and even without being able to drift or brake. Others require to beat a certain time or collect items in the battle arenas. If this was not enough, you have to face bosses and beat them by a fair margin in a very short track without items or hazards, basically putting your skills to the test. Still, nothing inhuman like other games can require, so while they do pose a threat they can still be cleared in a few runs.
OVERALL: 6.5
Fun to play with more people, but gets tiring after you manage to complete the few things it offers. Plain and simple, which goes on the line with the show, but regarding a videogame more is needed to triumph.
POSITIVE
-Unique weapon system and track hazards. Quirks like these make this game stand out and be different than most. The item roulette is nothing but an item meter, which makes it easier to aim for desired items, and the trigger-like hazards force you to not let your guard down until you have enough of a gap to add a bit of strategy into the race.
-Complete cast. While not every Looney Tunes character does appear as playable or makes a cameo on track, the cast is fairly much complete. This shows just how true to the show the game is, even with the consequences it might bring forth. Other games discard featuring so many of their characters, like this game’s own “sequel” Space Race, so definitely something worth noticing.
NEGATIVE
-Plain game. While it’s true a game like this must be aimed at all kinds of players, this only applies to easy-to-learn controls. The game’s depth could be much larger like other games have shown, even Mario Kart 64 had more things to do despite not having anything to unlock, so this game could have been pushed a bit more.
-All characters behaving equally. With this, there’s basically no need to try out every single character because they’re just different voices, quotes and sprites. Having different performance would entice players to test them all and probably discard their main favorite if it’s too hard to control or is too slow to clear the game.
Graphics
8 Sound
7 Addictive
6 Depth
5 Difficulty
7
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