Cars [PS2]

After being burned by titles like Catwoman, any game meant to promote a film is met with no small amount of doubt and fear. But Cars, at least as it appears on the Xbox and PS2 consoles, is different. The developer is Rainbow Studios, responsible for quite a few great racing games. They've added a free-roaming "sandbox" element, allowing you to drive anywhere in and around the film's town of Radiator Springs. Together with some great racing, the elements add up to much more than an eight-hour commercial for a film.

The game opens with a race that turns out to be a dream, then proceeds through a storyline that mirrors part of the film, as Lightning McQueen trains for the Piston Cup. The game's cars are excellent recreations of the film's characters, and solid voice acting adds to the atmosphere. Most of the tasks involve races of one sort, while collection missions and mini-games add variety

But what really makes Cars stand out from the pack is the excellent driving controls and physics created by Rainbow Studios. Where most licensed games are cheap quickies, this features cars with real weight and an AI that doesn't always back down, making for races that can take some effort. The steering and response are spot on, and cool moves like the powerslide and tilt (where the car goes up on two wheels for a speed-draining hairpin turn) are well implemented.

A notable design element is that the primary story mode can be played on a standard or easy mode, with the latter being a condensed version aimed at younger players. This is already a very family-friendly game (if not so much so as Lego Star Wars) but the easy mode is an option that goes the extra mile, allowing Rainbow to make a solid game for teens and youngsters alike.

The DS version of Cars is primarily built from mini-games, so it's fitting that mini-games appear here, too. The most notable is Tractor Tippin', which drops you (as Mater) into a darkened field prowled by Frank, the angry harvesting combine. The goal is to honk the horn to tip the cow-like tractors. On paper, it's a nice deviation from the primary game. In practice it's only fun for a few minutes, largely because the screen is quite dark (one only Tractor Tips at night) and the camera shifts unpredictably.

Other than slight deviations like that, however, Cars features excellent production values and is entertaining enough that adults will want to pick up the controller now and again. We'd like to see a broader set of locations and missions, given how well Rainbow enacted what is included, but there's a two-player race mode to add extra value. And since the primary goal of a licensed game like Cars is to advertise its namesake film, we're happy to get any real gameplay at all.