5 months ago
They say that imitation is the best form of flattery. If that's true, then Nintendo's never been more flattered about any of their game franchises than Mario Kart. EA's MySims Racing is the latest in a long, long line of racing games inspired by the sucessful Mario Kart franchise. In MySims Racing, you play as a character of your own design based in the style of Electronic Arts' MySims franchises.
The storyline is pretty simple and classic: You're an up-and-coming racer who's in a dusty little town called Speedville. As it turns out that the town is in trouble as the game's antagonist is trying to buy up all of the land for his own gain; putting the town, its racing heratage, and its residents out in the cold. It's up to your MySims racer to make things right by doing favors for the town's residents and winning races.
The controls are pretty simple and are more-or-less standard for the wii. You use the wii remote as a steering wheel, rotating it side-to-side to turn, forward to accellerate, back to break or reverse, and pop it into the air to make your car jump. It's a little tricky to get used to, but it's manageable.
Speaking of cars, there is a total of three different cars you can customize and keep in your garage. There's a lightweight race car, average car, and heavy truck. Most often you'll be in the average one. As you play through the game you'll earn new parts for your cars. The parts can be as simple as a cosmetic upgrade or option or as critical as a new performance part for your vehicle.
As for the racing itself, it's truely nothing new. Sure, as mario kart clones go it's one of the better ones out there but the basic premise stays the same. Race around a creativly-themed track picking up offensive and defensive weapons and using them to help you win. The items that you'll get while racing can range from projectiles to fire at opposing cars causing them to spin-out to a bubble-mine that temporarally slows the unfortanate racer who runs into it to a UFO that flys your racer to the front of the pack.
MySims Racing is a fairly good-looking game as MySims games go, and it fits well with the wii's casual gaming crowd. And with the exception of the wealth of simlish words that the characters speak, the audio isn't too bad either and fits in with the theme and attitude of the game well.
But the long and the short of it is that mysims racing is a Mario Kart clone, allbeit a pretty good one.
My final Game Guys grade is a B.
MySims Racing for the Nintendo Wii is rated "E" by the ESRB.
