Jimmie Johnson's Anything with an Engine
Jimmie Johnson's Anything with an Engine
Jimmie Johnson's Anything with an Engine
Jimmie Johnson's Anything with an Engine
Jimmie Johnson's Anything with an Engine
According to Bryan May, the Sports Director at KXTV News10, many of today's NASCAR drivers like to play kart racing video games between actual races. If that's the case, then it's no wonder that Autumn Games and Konami have published Jimmie Johnson's Anything with an Engine -- a kart racing game as envisioned by the NASCAR driver himself.
As with all kart racers, sometimes unfair comparisons will be drawn between it and Mario Kart (the accepted king of the genre). While it's safe to say that JJ's won't be unseating the Italian plumber any time soon, it does do well enough to hold its own against most of the other competitors in this always crowded market.
True to the game's name, JJ's has players racing literally anything the programmers could think to mount an engine onto EXCEPT for an actual kart racer. Players can choose from a suped-up riding lawnmower, a reclining chair, and even a bathtub. Each car has its own stats, though on the track they all even eachother out fairly well.
This game's actual racing is fun to a point. Like most all games in this genre, each kart has an assortment of weaponry that can be used to hinder or altogether take out an opponent. Unlike most games in this genre, armaments aren't just blindly given out. Instead, they're earned by running over a certain number yellow and green buttons on the racetrack. There are also red buttons that, rather than eventually grant the racer a weapon, triggers an on-track event. The overall fun factor starts out fairly high and maintains that for a bit longer than it should thanks to a small variety of different race modes, but the enjoyment wanes quickly once they've all been done once through.
Luckily, Jimmie Johnson's Anything with an Engine has multiplayer both online and local. Truth be told, the number of players racing online is rather sparse, but the game can be a blast to play with local competition.
Presentation-wise, JJ's is a hit-and-miss experience. Visually, cut scenes are downright awful with what seems like cardboard cutouts doing all of the action. Once on the track, though, things look much better. There seem to be no issues with frame rate even when all heck is breaking loose and the HUD is clear and easy to understand at a glance. But where this game really misses is in its audio. In-race voice-overs are average at best and the game's soundtrack simply isn't all that great.
Flaws intact, Jimmie Johnson's Anything with an Engine proves to be one of the better non-Mario Kart kart racing titles out there and is a good enough addition to the genre to be considered for a rental or discount buy.
Final Game Guys grade: C+
(Autumn Games provided a copy of this game for review.)
News10/KXTV