Monaco is a fun coastal race track that captures the essence of the real life location and London lets you race through crowded streets and pass real life landmarks. Some of the courses are uninspired but there are two that really stand out: Monaco and London. This means Cars 2: The Video Game looks fine on your current HDTV and runs well as a downloaded game. Of course the visuals are heavily dated but are still in HD.

If you’re gonna play, stick to the racing. Half of your time is spent trying to collect a weapon and the other half is spent trying to find an enemy. The cars are way too slow, the enemies too few, and the field is way too big. Sounds fun but they got the formula all wrong. Basically you’re dropped into a square arena and Professor Z drops down five waves of bad guys for you to blow up. However, the “arena” mode is terribly slow paced and boring. I found the races always exciting and it would be fun to play with 3 other friends. Other than driving in a straight line, the player can collect weapons, drive in reverse, bump-check sideways, lean on two wheels, and jump up to hard-to-reach areas. Disney and Avalanche Software developed a solid standalone racer. To label the Cars 2 game a Mario Kart ripoff would be unfair.

I played for an hour the night I downloaded it and found myself wanting to come back and play every day for about a week. Nearly a decade later, the gameplay to Cars 2: The Video Game is surprisingly fun. From there it’s basically a series of races and battles. Lightning McQueen and Mater team up with British intelligence dubbed CHROME to stop Professor Zundapp and his “Lemons”. The story, like the Cars movies, is simple and to the point.

Download cars 2 the video game