Cars 3: Driven to Win Review

I bought Cars 3: Driven to Win to play on the PlayStation 4 for my seven year old who is mad about Cars. Since he (and in a way I) watched the Cars 3 movie, I thought I would give the game a go.

As you start the game it shows a cutscene with Lightning McQueen, Cruz Ramirez, Doc Hudson and Smokey before giving the player a chance to race alongside them. Another car comes along, called Louise Nash, and this serves as a small tutorial of how to jump and drift. Another one called River Scott shows a little more driving and along comes Junior, another car that belongs to the Cars franchise. There’s a reason there are so many toys!

Controls are simple: press the right trigger to make your character drive along, and pressing the square button activates the turbo. To build up that bar you can do some tricks like backward driving, jumping over ramps, trying to flip your car or even two wheeling it - all things done using the right stick.

After you finish a small race just to get you used to things we come across Chick Hicks who is hosting the news, and as the cutscene continues we meet the famous new car called Jackson Storm. He’s the antagonist in the movie, a very fast car who always won his races until the end of the movie.

Anyway, after the cutscene has finished you come to a huge board called the Hall of Fame which tracks your stats as a racer and identifies skills you need to develop on the road to becoming a hall of fame driver. There are 136 skills that are built up by doing things like driving backwards for five seconds, driving on two wheels for ten seconds, and many more.

At the top of the screen is the Hall of Fame progress meter. As the meter advances with each Skill Check earned, new characters, modes, Master-Level Events, and car effects become unlocked and ready to play.

Throughout the game you take part in different races, and each level you complete you get awarded up to three stars. There are also different events such as Race, Battle Race, Stunt Showcase, Takedown, Best Lap, Challenge and Master-Level Events. There are also Cup Series which have you compete in a series of events to earn trophies, or you can create your own custom Cup Series.

Now, let me explain this in a little more detail: the Races are made up of three laps and the first one across the winning line is the winner. In Battle Races you collect and use variety of weapons (fire with triangle) to ensure a first place by shooting your opponents with bombs, oil and more. Stunt Showcase is where you earn points by successfully landing as many Air Tricks as possible. Takedown involves earning points by collecting weapons and eliminating as many Crash Karts as you can. Best laps are racing against your own best time in an attempt to set a new lap record. Finally, Master-Level Events are to prove you're the master of each event by competing against the very best in special events like Miss Fritter Battle Race, Mater The Greater Stunt Showcase, Chick Hicks Takedown and Jackson Storm Race. There is also the Thomasville Playground which is the perfect hideaway to practice and improve your skills.

There are 21 tracks available to race on, taking you to locales from the movies, such as London and Radiator Springs. I really like how each one looks and feels as you drive around them, and there are even shortcuts to find.

There is a multiplayer option where you choose a team to compete with or against your friends where you can Race, Battle Race, Takedown and Stunt Showcase. This is local co-op only, and splits the screen horizontally.

There are 22 characters throughout the game that you can unlock, such as Lightning McQueen, Cruz, Mater, Jackson Storm and so on. They even have Lightning McQueen's truck Mack, but I haven't gotten round to unlocking him as you have to collect all of Mack’s hats in the Thomasville Playground.

Cars 3: Driven to Win is a really good game, for a movie tie-in racing game. I came across no bugs or random crashes, the graphics make things look just like the movies, and the races are fun to do. Even if you play as an adult to entertain the little Cars fans till they are older. It's a fun way to see Lightning McQueen or any other of their favorites racing about and making silly faces.