M&M's Kart Racing

My defense: M&M's Kart Racing was a gift. Sometimes games are bad because they just aren't worth the money you pay for them. I would have been a lot harder on Go, Diego, Go! Safari Rescue and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz if I'd paid full price for them. Other games are bad because they are a waste of time. This poorly implemented racing game falls into the later category.

Looking at the menus, you might think the game offers a lot of play modes and options. "Quick Race" is a single player race. "Training" is the same thing, but with no other karts. "Arcade" is a race for points rather than strictly time. "Tournament" is a single player race just like "Quick Race". "Tournament" is the only mode that makes any sense to play since winning a race opens up new tracks for the other modes. And you'll want to open up more tracks since the three you start off with are boring. Finally there is a "Multiplayer" option, which is just a two-player, split-screen mode. It has two modes: "Quick Race" and "Full Throttle". The difference is that first is one lap with no extra karts and the other is three laps with opponents. "Options" sounds promising, but just allows you to adjust the music and sound effect volumes. (Hint: it doesn't matter since the game should always be played on mute.) "High Score" is pointless since you can't enter your own name.

Lack of modes is forgivable in a racing game, if the tracks are fun. We begin our circuit with the "Chocolate Factory". You might expect bright colors and wide-open spaces. Maybe the track would feature tricky conveyor belt and packing machine obstacles. Sadly, the track is a series of boxy rooms with drab, factory-like decor. Racing consists mostly of getting through the doors between rooms before your opponent and being careful not to run into anything. Turns pop up around each corner, so you have to keep on your toes (or memorize them). There are usually signs pointing the next turn, but they sit on immovable posts that will bring your kart to a dead stop that will force you to reverse away from the post. Annoying.

Next up is "The Streets", which ought to have been called "The Dark Alleys". Most of the course is a series of narrow alleys with protruding door steps designed to slow karts down. Part of the course is a wide boulevard with a giant truck (not moving) and you start to wonder what the game would be like with wide-open courses. Then you take a big left turn into a dead end with a small opening back into the alley. If you can find it. To be successful, you need to memorize the awkward layout of each track, which does nothing to add to interest in the game.

Each course has two types of power-ups that are placed in fixed locations. First are chocolate coins that can be used to purchase new carts. Sadly, the new carts aren't that interesting or beneficial. Once you've bought them all, the coins are best avoided as collecting them blocks your view of the track ahead with an update of the number you have. The other power-up is a cup of coffee that give your kart a speed boost. Invariably, the coffee is at the end of a long straightaway so picking up the coffee will boost your speed into tight, twisty turns. It's the last thing you want.

The House level is more or less the same idea a The Chocolate Factory: boxy rooms with narrow doorways. The Farm actually turns out to be interesting. It's more open than the other courses and it has a difficult hay bail maze section. After running through the course several times, I discovered there is a shortcut through the maze. After three mindless, unrewarding tracks, the first unlockable gave me a glimmer of hope the rest of the game was going to be better. Like, maybe the initial tracks are sort of tutorials.

This tiny nod to rewarding gameplay got me excited to play the next level: The Forest. Here was another chance for a wide-open track with shortcuts and maybe less drab visuals. Sadly the forest the designers seem to have had in mind is Mirkwood. There are no shortcuts, no brightness, no escape. If you stray even for a moment from the path, you are likely to be caught by, well, monstrously large blades of grass or stuck behind huge mushrooms with the M&M logo. In addition, you can't see very far. Or rather, trees pop into existence when you get close enough to them. Initially, I thought this was an issue with objects being loaded into memory when beginning a level. But no, each time around the trees suddenly appear.

I don't have the heart to continue racing in the horrid forest level, so if there are more surprises like the farm, I'll never find them. And to be completely clear, the farm is only a good course relative to the very poor alternatives found in the rest of the game. No matter how cheap the game, it's too expensive. It's just not worth your time.

Go, Diego, Go! Safari Rescue

Go, Diego, Go! Safari Rescue was the "one free" my son picked out in a "buy two, get one free" sale, so I didn't have high expectations. Thankfully, the game cleared the admittedly low bar. If you've seen the show aimed at the pre-school and kindergarten set, you have a pretty good idea of how Safari Rescue plays: Animals are in danger, lots of repetitive running around, occasional multiple-choice logic problems, encouragement to move like an animal and a few factoids about the animals as they are rescued. Fans of the show will be right at home.

The controls are basic, but effective. Tilt the Wiimote to the left and Diego runs to the left. Tilt to the right to run right. Either 1 or 2 will cause Diego to jump or manipulate objects in the environment. Along the way, obstacles arises that requires the player to perform some motion: spray water like an elephant, shake a tree, climb a ladder and so on. From time to time, the player is called on to steer some mode of transportation along a fixed pathway. At no point will the game let a player suffer more than a quick stumble, so young players won't be discouraged.

There is a basic cooperative mode, but it could really be fleshed out. Rather than taking control of Baby Jaguar, which would have been easy to implement, the second player spends most of their time watching the progress of the primary player. During certain Wiimote waggle challenges, the second player can perform the motion to slightly speed up the action. Sadly, this won't be much help since the challenges are so short and easy to begin with. At our house, the second player imitates the actions of the primary player even though they don't have any effect in the game itself. The other multi-player mode occurs outside of the main game where players can race the elephants, Jeeps, hang-gliders and so on. This mode is fairly short and uncomplicated, but does add a bit of spice to the overall package.

Now there really isn't much to the game. Playing through everything, including earning all badges, will only take an hour or two. Young children might take a bit longer to explore things since it's possible to loop back and start parts of levels over. Game play is relaxing rather than challenging after learning the basic control. I found the mud board runs entertaining for a while and jumping from one ledge to another using spring platforms was a small thrill. Other activities became repetitive, but not to an extreme. Older children will get bored fairly soon.

But younger players (no older than kindergarten) who like the show will play it over and over. For them, the experience will be much like watching the show itself. That includes good voice acting and a somewhat flimsy story. As a parent, I enjoyed helping my son and watching him get better at moving Diego around. For the right child, there's nothing wrong with picking up a copy in the bargain bin.

It saddens me to read that the sequel, Go, Diego, Go! Great Dinosaur Rescue, is identical to Safari Rescue, but that's more or less par for the course in preschool games. These games have very short shelf life at full price since consumers have come to expect very little of them. It's too bad. There are plenty of game play elements to build a fun series, but instead the publishers and developers have decided to settle on mediocrity. There is a solution: refuse to pay full price unless game makers put in a full effort. Hit 'em where it hurts.