Friday 18 Sep 2009

Smash Cars is the latest PlayStation Network title to emerge from the partnership between Creat Studios and TikGames. Smash Cars is an arcade racer that sees players racing radio controlled cars, smashing and crunching the opposition and racing against the clock to cross the finishing line first.

Smash Cars is set on a Mediterranean Island in lush, vibrantly coloured environments that wrap themselves around the tracks. While you are racing around the track, don’t be surprised to drive into a large beach ball, cool drink bottle or even a giant human foot as you round a corner. This is because you are racing radio controlled cars remember, so everything appears life-size from your perspective!

You will learn pretty early on that the main objective in Smash Cars is to smash the items that will earn you boost and avoid the items that your car will just crunch, slowing you down in the process. Keeping your boost meter replenished is vitally important, especially when you need that little bit extra to get you across the finish line just ahead of your opponent. You can earn boost by smashing into boost items and performing air tricks.

Actually controlling the car is pretty simple, press R2 to accelerate, L2 to brake or reverse and circle to activate your boost and, hopefully, leave your opponents in your dust. While it may be relatively easy to pick up boost from boost items, after you have identified which are safe items that is, perfecting air tricks may take more time. However, it’s time well spent because performing air tricks correctly is vital in your never-ending quest for boost. After hitting a ramp, press X to launch your car into the air. Use the left analogue stick to spin and roll the car. The more rotations you achieve the more stars and boost you will earn. But if you don’t pull off the air trick properly, not only will you crash unceremoniously to the ground but you will lose your boost earnings too! Of course you can also earn boost from crashing into your opponents, which never tires. It’s also possible to turn on the motion sensing function on your controller which allows you to tilt the controller to perform the spins and rolls in the air instead of using the analogue stick. It works just as well and really comes down to personal preference.

If you like to live dangerously, you may want to try bumping into a human foot or two along the way. If you manage to pull this off, you will earn a well deserved speed boost, however, if you don’t get out of their way quickly enough you will soon be picked up by a giant hand and thrown abruptly off course. Danger lurks in the most obscure items so watch out for lilos, watermelons and other beach-like items that scatter the tracks. Of course holes in the boardwalks also offer a unique opportunity should you happen to find yourself and an opponent next to one at the same time, if you catch my drift (excuse the pun).

While the tracks are well themed and each offer slightly different obstacles, there just don’t seem to be enough of them. After you have been playing the game for a while, you will become familiar with them after far too short a time, and before long you will be racing the same tracks, only in reverse this time. Although some will contain different routes and it’s key to discover the shortcuts within each one if you want to shave valuable seconds off your time, there still seems to be a little something lacking in this department. Perhaps some downloadable content in the future will help solve this problem.

Each of the three cars available to race in (Monster, Buggy and Sports) handle differently, so choose wisely and not just based on your current decals and paint job. Speaking of decals, there’s plenty of customization options to unlock and it’s always a good thing to step into your garage and give your car a fresh coat of paint or change the body to shake things up a bit – it shows the competition you mean business.

There are basically three challenges that you will face in Smash Cars: race again the clock to beat a certain time; race against opponents to finish first; or knockout where the player in last place at the end of each lap gets eliminated. You can earn either gold, silver or bronze medals on each challenge which does add a certain replayability factor to the game.

You can race with up to six players online in Smash Cars. As with most other racing games, it’s always great to pit your racing skills against non-AI opponents. You can either choose to host the game (great if you want to choose the racing turf) or join someone else’s game. The lag is acceptable and didn’t prevent me from enjoying the experience. You can also earn bragging rights by winning races and leveling up, moving upwards from rookie to skilled and pro.

While I didn’t play the 2003 Smash Cars that Creat Studios released on the PS2 back in 2003, I certainly enjoyed my time roaring around the different tracks in Smash Cars for the PS3. While it won’t take you too long to complete the game, there certainly is enough in terms of online options to warrant a closer look if you are interested in arcade racing at all. Smash Cars is available on the PlayStation Network for $14.99.

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Contributor:	Lisa

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