Speed Racer: The Video Game Wii Hands On Preview

By Tristan Clark

During the recent Armageddon Expo in Wellington, attendees may have noticed a pretty spiffy-looking Wii racing game on display at the NZGamer booth. That racer is the upcoming video game adaptation of the new Speed Racer movie, and it was made right here in Wellington by developer Sidhe Interactive. We recently got a chance for a further play through, and have started to think the unthinkable: that a game based on a forthcoming movie might actually not suck.

If you’re too young to remember the old Speed Racer cartoons, I’d recommend hitting up Wikipedia. In essence, Speed Racer: The video game is a young and talented driver who enters a racing rally with his car, the Mach 5. However, he soon uncovers a plot involving nasty corporations, match fixing, bitter rivalries, and other kinds of intrigue. Basically it’s a great excuse to race fast and knock other cars around in the process.

The game itself it all about the driving – using the Wii remote’s motion sensing to steer, you’ll navigate a bunch of tracks populated with some aggressive drivers. Unlike other adaptations that try and throw everything but the kitchen sink at you, Speed Racer Speed Racer: The Video Game feels streamlined and – gasp – polished.

Probably the best way to describe it is as a mix of Wipeout and something like Excite Truck. You’ll hit some insane speeds, but the steering is forgivable and tight, which is quite an achievement when it comes to motion controls. The game feels like an arcade racer through and through, especially when you factor in the moves you can pull off. To help you finish first, you’ll need to employ some dirty tricks, including driving up behind a rival and flipping their car over. Moves likes this are done by pressing down a button and moving the Wii remote around, so it all manages to feel pretty intuitive.

The overall feeling of the races is pretty gratifying – they’re fast, responsive, and slick. The excellent visual style really helps get this across – the graphics are nicely crisp for a Wii title, and a lot of the track design will impress you, particularly when you go through a ridiculously long loop de loop. The addition of extremely trippy boost effects and cheesy one-liners from fellow racers (complete with anime-style portraits) is further icing on the cake.

So there’s no doubt the game is fun – the only major question left is how well it’ll hold up over the long run. There are quite a few play modes, including splitscreen multiplayer and different track lengths, so it looks promising, but we’ll have to wait until we get our review copy in before making a final call on this. If it can maintain its satisfying gameplay after a good few hours are put into it, this game might just join the tiny collection of titles based on movies that are actually really good.

If you want to be the first to know when Speed Racer: The Video Game gets a New Zealand release date be sure to add the game to you myNZGamer wishlist.

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