Game: Cruis'n
Console: Nintendo Wii
Developer: Just Games Interactive
Release Date: 27th November 2007
Over the years of writing my review blog, I've not been particularly kind to Midway. From crappy arcade games to buying Atari and Williams Entertainment's intellectual properties and making awful updated versions of classic games, Midway have never seemed too concerned with the quality of the games they release. Cruis'n is no exception to this; the final instalment in the Cruis'n series which had started off fairly well in 1996 with Cruis'n USA.
Cruis'n for Wii started life as The Fast and The Furious, an arcade game which Midway had no part in creating. The company planned to bring The Fast and The Furious arcade game to consoles, but lost the license to the franchise part way through development and decided to convert it to a Cruis'n title instead of putting any real effort into making a new entry in the series. Considering the original arcade game was released in 2004, and no real effort was made to update the graphics, save for changing any reference to The Fast and The Furious, it's clear that the entire game was typical of Midway's lack of effort and care.
Players race through tracks based on 12 real world locations, all in the USA and presumably featured in The Fast and The Furious movies. None of the tracks are particularly well designed, with breakable obstacles all over the place and many jumps which impact player control negatively. Most of the tracks feel very narrow in width, and can cause difficulty in keeping the car pointing straight forwards.
There are two types of control that can be used in the game; Motion Control where the Wiimote can be tilted in order to steer, and D-pad Control where the d-pad is used to steer. Motion Control is incredibly frustrating and very difficult to use precisely. D-pad control is better, but the game's handling still isn't particularly impressive. Often players will find themselves scraping against walls, buildings or whatever is at the edge of the track, slowing them down.
The AI featured in the game is probably it's worst feature; rubberbanding is taken to a new level as poor performances from players don't necessarily bar them from winning races. On several occasions, I performed far worse in races that I'd completed quickly than ones that I had been 15 seconds slower in. Thanks to this, it's essentially random luck as to whether players win races, and mostly down to whether they crash in the last 20 seconds or so of racing.
With only 2 modes featured in the game, there's very little for players to do, and even less when they realise that they're essentially the same. Both Arcade and Challenge modes see players attempting to finish 3rd or better in order to upgrade their car and continue with the race series. The only difference between the two modes seems to be that Challenge mode allows new tracks to be unlocked whereas arcade mode takes place on tracks already unlocked.
Graphically the game was outdated at the time of its release thanks to firstly being a port of a 2 year old arcade game, and secondly being on the Wii rather than an HD console. The cars, whilst licensed look very little like their real life counterparts, and when coupled with the motion captured visuals of some of the bikini clad girls at the start of races make the whole presentation seem pretty ridiculous. Soundwise there's very little of note, and the audio is just as half hearted as the rest of the game.
Overall Cruis'n is representative of not only what's wrong with many motion controlled racing games on the Wii, but also issues with much of Midway's output and their low effort attempts to revive classic franchises without giving them the proper respect they deserve. Easily forgettable, and with very little replayability it's not a game that anyone would want to play for more than an evening, or even complete.
Rating: 46/100
Grade: D
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