Reviewer’s Note: We were lucky enough to have the opportunity to review two versions of the Speed Racer Video Game; Speed Racer for the Wii and Speed Racer for the Nintendo DS. And rather than review both versions together, I decided to review them separately because there is enough of a difference in game play that I felt they each warranted their own review. However, because the back-story is the same for both versions of the game, I shall only elaborate upon it here, in the Speed Racer for the Wii review. Therefore, if you heed my advice and read this review first, then I congratulate you upon your ability to follow simple instructions. However, if you are reading this review after having read my review on Speed Racer for the Nintendo DS, after being instructed not to do that and you are now ever so slightly confused, than I am afraid I have no sympathy for you.

Okay, now onto business…

When it comes to video games based on movies, whether they are blockbusters or not, I am just not impressed. Basically and in most cases, game play comes down to a retelling of the story only with small and insignificant plot twists, which means you already know what’s coming. Game play consists of repeating the actions of the characters in the movie to get yourself from point A to point B. If I want that much excitement, I’ll watch the movie again, thank you very much. Oh, and don’t even get me started on video games that Hollywood in their questionable wisdom have seen fit to turn into a movie. Anyway, as a rule, I stay away from video games based on movies.

Now there are exceptions to rules… As an example, the Lego Star Wars video game comes to mind. The games combination of playing with Legos, in the Star Wars Universe, in a video game format, well we’re talking some good stuff and a winning trifecta. The other exception to the rule is when the video game programmers take a single element from a movie and expand that into a game. Such is the case of Speed Racer for the Wii.

So right off the bat, let me just say that Speed Racer is first and foremost a car racing video game. That’s it. We’re talking, “Drivers start your engines!” “Ready! On your mark! Get set! Go!” “And the winner is…” However, the car races in this video game take place in Speed Racer’s universe, where cars are not only built for speed, but defy the laws of physics and perform pirouetting attack moves known as Car-Fu. But I get ahead of myself.

I wish my Hot Wheels did that…

Okay, tell me the truth, did you ever in your lifetime take 30 or so feet of Hot Wheels racing track and position it up, over, and around the furniture of your room, designing what was, in a sense, a rollercoaster track complete with dips, loops, corkscrews, switchbacks, and the like? And did you then subject your Hot Wheels racer to this monster of a track only to quickly discover that The Laws of Physics and Gravity make for cruel mistresses, in that your Hot Wheels vehicle barely survived the first loop, let alone the 270-degree banking turn off the dresser leading into the triple camelbacks? Well in creating Speed Racer’s universe for the movie, the Wachowski brothers said “to heck with The Laws of Physics,” which lead the Warner Bros Gaming Unit to follow suit, resulting in a car racing universe that is a Hot Wheels child’s dream and an urban planner’s nightmare.

Compete, Win, and Unlock

Basic game play in Speed Racer is similar to other racing games with the standard 3 game modes: “Single Races” to get the feel for the track and the game, “Time Trials” to perfect your car handling skills, and “Championships,” which consist of multiple races with points awarded based on race results. He/she who has the most points at the end of the tournament wins. Garner 1st, 2nd, or 3rd to unlock new competitions, drivers, and cars.

The game keeps track of your racing experience allowing you to easily win the first couple of “Championships” before the competition turns nasty and you find yourself ganged-up upon by the other drivers and then you discover yourself accusing the game of cheating.

Not your Pop’s Formula 1

There is a fourth game mode called “Tutorial,” which I understand is a relatively new feature being incorporated more and more into games like this. The car you are racing is a T-180, the standard racecar used in the World Racing League (WLR). The T-180 has “Jump Jacks”, which allow it to jump into the air, it can reach speeds in excess of 400 MPH, and it can Slide due to its four independently rotating wheels. Learning to control the T-180 requires a helping hand, so Speed Racer’s girlfriend, Trixie, walks you through a brief tutorial teaching you the basics of the T-180 followed by an opportunity for you to try out what you’ve just learned. Accelerating, Boosting off the starting line, Steering, Speed Boosts, Jumping, Back Flip, Forward Flip, Barrel Roll, Shunting (sliding the car across the track), and Sliding in order to perform “Car-Fu” with your T-180 were all covered by Trixie during the tutorial.

Right after my 6-year-old son Nikolai and I popped the game disc into our Wii and watched the opening spiel; we went straight to the tutorial to try our hand at controlling the T-180. Frustration doesn’t begin to describe what Nik felt. Push this while flipping that, while remembering to turn this, all the while slipping “Tab A” into “Slot B”. I was never good at these multi-button attack moves and neither is Nik. On more than one occasion he handed me the controls and said, “Here Daddy, you do it.” I was beginning to become concerned that this game may be too much for him.

After we gave up on the Tutorial and tried the first couple of races, I soon found that my concerns were misplaced. The Car-Fu maneuvers aren’t required to ‘win’ and more than likely you’ll stumble upon special attack moves as you race. And, like in most of the youth these days, Nik’s brain rewired itself in order to reflexively take full advantage of the Car-Fu moves. It wasn’t long before he was besting my times and beating me while racing multiplayer. The game displays multiplayer by splitting the screen vertically, shrinking the view, and thus allowing me to argue the need for a bigger television screen than our 9-year-old 27-inch CRT with my wife Tonya.

You’re over-steering the Wii-mote

Control of the game is via the Wii-mote, which you hold horizontally facing towards you, or up. Speed Racer is also compatible with the Wii Wheel, which we found made the concept of steering, and thus the game, a lot easier to master. You steer by tilting the Wii-mote either left or right, and it is very easy to over steer the T-180. In the beginning, Nik fought with this problem and as I watched him slam from one side of the racetrack to the other, it brought back memories of the side-to-side whiplash I suffered while riding shotgun with him at the Disneyland Autotopia.

Push the number 2 Button to accelerate and the number 1 Button to brake and reverse, though to paraphrase Trixie, I don’t know why you’d want to brake or go in reverse in a race like this. The B Button gives you your Speed Boosts and the + Controller controls your special moves. Shunting is accomplished by quickly moving the Wii-mote right or left and to Jump you quickly move the Wii-mote up and toward yourself. In a nutshell, moving the Wii-mote aimlessly during a race could cause your T-180 to go careening all over the place.

Game Extras

During the races, the other drivers will pop-up in the upper left or right corners and talk smack about your racing… This is fun the first couple of times but I’m getting to a point when I wish I could turn the heavily regurgitated comments off.

A cool feature is what Tonya calls “Wachowski Bullet Time” and that occurs during Car-Fu moments, when everything slows down, including the music, so you can live those moments when you smear your opponent or they smear you in super slow-mo. After the Car-Fu move, the pace and the music slowly revs back up to real time speed.

Finally, gravity does work to a small extent. If you’re not moving fast enough on the track or you don’t have enough speed going into a jump, your T-180 can crash and burn.

What I like

I’m a big fan of racing video games and this one pleases me. It’s fast, it’s stimulating, and I find myself leaning my body into the turns. The bonus is the amazingly twisted and surreal racetracks.

What I don’t like

No review mirror. The other drivers have a tendency to sneak-up behind you and attack without warning, hence my earlier comment that the game cheats. In the movie, Speed had a video screen built into his steering wheel to see who riding in his wake, and in most other video racing games, there is the ability to see what’s coming up your tailpipe. The Nintendo DS version attempts to take care of this by using the touch screen to display how the drivers are lined up and their relative closeness to each other. This has none of that except the ability to change the view of your car from right behind it to about one and a half car lengths behind it. Either way, there is not enough warning to dodge an opponents Car-Fu attack on your vehicle.

Overall impression

Both Nik and I are having a lot of fun with this game and nothing brings a father and son closer together than the chance to race against each other and talk smack. Tonya says she also enjoys this game, even though she’s not much into car races. Sure it’s a car racing video game, but the cars, their abilities and the mind-bending racetracks make for a lot of fun. In the end, Nik liked this version of the game over the DS giving it 98 Thumbs Up out of his patented 100, and just to be difficult I’m giving it 6 Dancing Elephants out of 8.

Parting thoughts

Of the two versions of Speed Racer we reviewed, this one is Nik’s favorite. As for me… Well this one makes my right thumb very sore.

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