Old Guy Game Guide: Cars Race O Rama

There is a weird connection with the Disney Cars franchise and my family.  The movies are around the top of my list for Pixar films and Anabelle calls the third one a "cinematic masterpiece." 

However, neither of us are "car people" in real life, and we care less about NASCAR than we do other sports, which is at the slim to none level.

Yet the films hypnotize us.  Since the first one Anabelle has had a collection of the toys that she would get excited about expanding for each film, (as would I). That includes the second one which she didn't like nearly as much as the others. (She likes the racing parts, not the "main plot" parts.) 

In fact, they all starred in her most recent Holiday Parade.  The pressure of taking insane numbers of AP Courses being what it is, she didn't have time to write up the commentary.  But since images from this game are readily available online, there's a finite number of vehicles and decorations and it's impossible to take photos while racing, I'll use her parade shots throughout my review.

If one reads other reviews of Cars Race-o-Rama online, they are  generally, extremely negative.  The worst part of most of them (written by hard core gamers no doubt) is that it is far too easy and the entire story mode can be finished in a couple of hours.

To reinforce the level of these "Old Guy Game Guides" ...

Reaching 100% took us TEN YEARS!

However, this is still both of our favorite PS3 game, and the one we have played and continue to play most often.  It's also the last Cars game built on this particular engine. From Cars 2 onward they  added weapons to the vehicles as well as multiple other types of challenges.  Race-O-Rama has some built in mini-games, but is primarily several types and terrains of pure racing. It features most of the characters from the first film, plus some cool original ones.  

(Like  Macho Man Randy Savage as El Machismo a dirt racing pick up...OOOOH YEAHHH!!!!)

I think our lack of caring about real cars makes this the perfect game for us. It contains the thrill of racing, without having to know anything about automobiles in general, except which fun personality and "pretty" paint job we'd like to see.  It's also cartoony, meaning there's no vehicle ending damage as we routinely smash into buildings, fall off cliffs, and flip through the air on a missed turn impaling our cars on cacti.

Granted one reason it took so long to complete was we spend most of our time playing this game in "arcade" mode.  That's where two players race each other, but it doesn't advance the story.    Story mode was important, however, as each accomplishment unlocked cars, paint jobs and races for the arcade mode.

Mostly we'd race each other, but we'd also take turns unlocking new things here and there in the story.  The Cut Scenes were a lot of fun, in the spirit of the films.

 We did get stuck on some races for ...

Well, honestly a year or so in the worst cases...

until one of us beat it.

As we continued we unlocked more and more variety.  There are races in and around Radiator Springs, and in several other locations.

An actual race track (the least fun, as there are no hills or obstacles to send our vehicles flying into buildings and/or the wilderness.)

A coastal beach town, (You'd think a Ferris wheel would be easy to avoid when driving, and yet...)

A Tokyo like shortcut filled city at night, (Perfect for accidentally jumping onto, or falling off of roofs)

And a sprawling, hilly dirt road near a ghost town. (Where we've had multi car collisions IN a factory)

I noticed an interesting transformation over time.

The computer controlled cars pace off the leader of the two people racing.  Changing the difficulty level, interestingly, doesn't affect their speed. Instead it makes them more aggressive, inevitably leading to an eight car pile up on the first turn.

The opponent rate control meant (when Anabelle was little) I would keep my car well below its maximum speed, often ignoring the turbo boost button all together in order to allow her to keep up with the other vehicles.

As she's gotten older, faster and more skilled, I now find myself having to drive flat out in most races to keep any other cars in sight.  (Except the ghost town one. She has trouble on dirt and usually finishes the champion race there going up the giant ramp and falling off backwards, complete with hilarious commentary, on purpose.)

It's gotten so on her favorite race "Stinger's Stir Up," the champion race in the Tokyo night setting, I need to use the Super Lightning McQueen car that maxes out at 200 mph (20 mph faster than the top speed of the fastest other standard cars) we unlocked with the final story race to keep her in sight at all.  She has impressive records for both the shortest overall time and best lap.  She uses Stinger, a wordless, growling Barracuda, voiced by Dee Bradley Baker.   Given the 200mph car is also the least stable in the game, the times I can't keep up with her are usually due to some highly entertaining sky crossing, building roof bouncing, wipe outs.

She initially had problems in the Monster Truck races, until we learned that Sulley (based on the Monster's Inc. character from the end credits scenes in the first Cars film) is ridiculously slower than every other truck. Once she picked a different one, we normally both screw up and fall over the same amount to make them close.  She's managed to eclipse my formerly fantastic performance in the figure eight, smash up, Rust Bucket Derby races.  There, she drives "Bubba" a truck so big he blots out most of the drivers view of the track. The only effect that has on her as she wins is she needs to ask, "Did I land on you?" before apologizing.

She excels in other races too.  And that's not counting the "Guido Cart" Mario Kart type races of forklifts and other tiny vehicles. I've been awful at them since day one, meaning she finished most of them in story mode as well.  One of the last unlocked vehicles was the Mike Wazaowski cart.  Similar to Sully, he is horrible. It's not a speed issue this time, he's simply an unsteerable beast who occasionally rolls around on the floor for minutes at a time for no reason.

Then there's "Point to Point One."  This was the first race available in Arcade mode.  Most races have laps, the "point to point"s do not.  It starts up by the Wheel Well Motel, and offers several routes down the Cadillac Ridge Mountain Range before ending up on the new road of Radiator Springs.

This was the track I initially got used to slowing down for her to keep up. 

Now however...

I'm lucky if I see more than one other car in the far distance.  She even wins driving Luigi, and that little fiat tops out at 30-40mph slower than most of the other cars.  She's beaten me when I'm using the 200mph Lighting by huge stretches.

When I exasperatingly shouted, "HOW THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT???"

She calmly turned, looked at me stated:

"I'm the Luigi Whisperer."

Then she leaned in close, quietly inquiring, while doing the common Italian "capice?" hand motion:

"You need-a da tires?"