Having anthropomorphised toys, animals, and monsters, Pixar were an animation studio that made us relate to the characters despite not being human. Every story they crafted featured very human emotion despite the situations the characters found themselves in being unfamiliar (though recognisable) to us. Having presented a tale of superheroes with The Incredibles in 2004, their next film would anthropomorphise something humans used every day. Cars.

While it might have seemed a weird concept, the story presented proved to be a success, with a racer focused on winning learning to loosen up and not be so self-centred. The movie was a success, and after some time, a sequel released. And then a number of years later a third movie in the franchise. Between those movies were also short series and short movies, but also games.

Just as I was interested in the movies, I was also interested in the games. While I didn’t have all of them, I certainly had the tie-in games to the first two movies. In fact, those were the only two tie-in games of Pixar movies I’ve ever owned. That probably just shows how much I loved racers even back then.

It’s been a long time since I last played anything in the Cars series, however, so I felt a franchise focus would be the best way of experiencing the games of this series once again. At least, those I could get on the Xbox Series S. I’ve streamed them on Twitch and enjoyed them all, so now it’s time for me to give some more concise thoughts about those I played.

The original Cars game released in 2006, and it is the PSP version of the game I had back when it released. This version differed from the console versions in having a new set of tracks, a different story (both of which take place after the film), and no open world exploration. I enjoyed my time with it, though don’t remember much about it. Hence, when playing Mater-National Championship, I was unsure how much I was familiar with.

The sequel game released in 2007, and you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a remake if you just saw screenshots. While there might have been a new story and new set of races, the locations are the same from the previous game. Yeah, it’s to be expected of a sequel game, but very little changed between them aside from some new additions. Even if one of those additions is an airport.

Mater-National Championship does keep the open world exploration from the console version of the first game, but this time the story progresses through those areas in a linear fashion. Three regular races and a relay race, per area will unlock a stadium race. There’s also the Rustbucket Championship within Ornament Valley, where you play as Mater rather than McQueen.

The races are all good fun, with the routes of the races all offering variety in how to approach them. No race feels like it overstays its welcome, with the longest being just under three minutes a lap in length and only two laps (compared to the usual three). The relay races see you play out a race, but with swapping between racers per lap.

Along with those are the minigames. These I haven’t really touched. During the stream, I tried Ramone’s Rhythmic Rumble – a rhythm minigame which seemed deceptively easy for a first try, and Doc and the Law’s Race ‘n’ Chase, which is pretty much a game of tag where the person who is it must hit the one trying to escape to their ending point.

It’s an enjoyable game that allows for some good exploration of the area around Radiator Springs, which is something I’m sure fans of the original movie had wanted to do. Of course, having done it in the previous game, the enjoyment of that probably had worn off. That doesn’t mean this one is redundant, though, as it still provided more exploration of these characters and introducing a few new ones.

After Mater-National Championship, fans were treated to Race ‘O Rama, which once again had an open world of Radiator Springs and the surrounding area. This time, however, the three sections were merged into a singular world. I’ve got no experience with this one, but wanted to include it as part of the history of the series.

With the release of the second movie, a tie-in game released. Once again a sequel to the movie, Mater has invited the Radiator Springs populace to the C.H.R.O.M.E. holographic simulation training facility to meet Finn McMissile and Holley Shiftwell. Clearly they were only expecting Mater, considering Holley at first is flustered at the amount of cars coming in, but Finn is more welcoming to them.

The idea with this game is that you’re training to become a spy. Here, you can choose the character you want to play as. I stuck with McQueen throughout. I’ve had previous experience with this on the PS3 (along with Cars 3: Driven to Win using the exact same mechanics), so everything was familiar to me. Making the tutorial missions a chore to run through.

Upon completing the tutorial missions, the first clearance level unlocked. There are six clearance levels to work through, with each mission giving you a three-star rating and spy points depending on how you do during it. Races and battle races require finishing first to get the three stars, while the other three events of hunters, survivals, and attack require set targets to be hit for each star.

The controls here feel a lot better compared to Mater-National Championship, being more in line with modern racers. This game introduces the jump, with tricks being performed while in the air. Drifting feels a lot easier to handle here, with a boost system that builds up to four sections of a bar through doing those actions, plus backwards and two-wheel driving.

I enjoyed this one, having managed to three-star all events on a first or second try. Until I got to the first survival. With these, you have a shield that is continuously losing energy. You need to survive three laps, collecting energy capsules that appear upon driving through a checkpoint. These energy capsules appear in set lines, with each lap the route needed to claim all of them getting harder. I just about managed to win the first, but then the second just proved too technical for me to get three stars on.

While needing three stars isn’t necessary to progress, I was wanting to get the highest honour for each event before moving on. I had to move on, though, as I don’t think an hour of me trying to beat one event would have been good entertainment while streaming. I enjoyed the attack events a lot more. Since they returned for Cars 3, I’ll talk of them with that game.

And speaking of which, the third game released to tie-in with the third movie, and was – you guessed it – a sequel to the movie. Here, the story sees Chick Hicks with his talk show challenging McQueen to a rematch with Jackson Storm. And that’s it. Any other story beats are just intros and outros for the boss events the game provides – the last one of which being against Jackson Storm.

There are four boss events in the game, with each seeing the boss needing to be beaten in an event of their choosing. But how do you get to these boss battles? Ticking off a number of skill checks. Yeah, when I said there’s little story, I meant it. No career mode here, just a board of skills to be completing. You don’t need all of them complete to get to the final boss event (which is just as well considering there’s a multiplayer section), but they’ll still get you to try out every event in the game.

As for those events, race and battle race return, as does attack (now named takedown), with new events stunt showcase and best lap challenge. Stunt showcase sees racers aim to beat others by performing stunts in the air while hitting balloons to add onto that stunt total. I’m pretty bad at it, failing to get the full three stars on any of the events. Best lap challenge is exactly what it sounds like. A challenge to get the fastest lap on a track. Which leads me to takedown.

Here, there’s waves of enemy cars that appear ahead of you, with a range of weapons to take them out with. In Cars 2, the targets to hit for stars were based on the number of enemies hit. With Cars 3, that changed to be points based, with each type of car being worth a different amount of points. Bonus cars could appear for a number of seconds that awarded a lot of points if hit, with a bonus score being applied depending on how fast you cleared the wave. It’s all good fun, and my most played of the events aside from regular racing.

Along with a cup series, which sees three tournaments per event lined up to succeed at, and the sponsored team play (which is the multiplayer only zone, so I’ve got no experience there), there’s also the Thomasville Playground. This playground has a small open area for you to drive around, with a number of mini events to take part in. These are tough on a solo player if you’re gunning for three stars. Or maybe I’m just not reacting fast enough.

This game is the one that brought back a few tracks from the previous game, with the London, Italy, and Tokyo races from Cars 2 making an appearance, along with the Radiator Springs race that featured in that game. New Radiator Springs tracks appear here, along with other locations from the third movie.

It’s hard to really rate the games, as each bring something different to the series. If I had to choose one, it would be Cars 3. There’s nothing that different between 2 and 3 in terms of gameplay mechanics, but the freedom to approach unlocking those bosses how a player wants suits me better than the linear nature of Cars 2’s clearance levels.

It is a shame that we’ll probably never get another Cars game. There’s plenty of scope to explore this world, which the games we’ve seen have only touched on. Create a fully original story not tied to one of the movies, with different areas being represented by explorable areas. Heck, make it so we create our own car and have us go through our story to success, meeting new friends and rivals along the way.

The Cars franchise has given me an enjoyable time. The movies and the games, along with the shows. While tie-in games, they have proven to be worthwhile additions to any racing game catalogue by virtue of how fun they are. While I might be complaining at the length of some of them, I’ve never found any to be boring to drive around, which is the first core any racing game should strive to succeed at.

Images Taken From:
Cars: Mater-National Championship (Original Screenshots)
Cars 2: The Video Game (Original Screenshots)
Cars 3: Driven To Win (Original Screenshots)