CART World Series

"A very fun and realistic game."

Cart World Series is a game based on the CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) racing series. This game is a fun little racer most of the CART drivers from the year it was made, including: Al Unser Jr., Bobby Rahal, Jimmy Vaser, Mark Blundell, Gil de Farren, Scott Pruett, Alex Zanardi and more, and ten of the real race tracks.

Gameplay – 10/10

The game has plenty of drivers to choose from and a very nice create-a-player mode, where you could pick your team and a picture that best resembles you (which for most people would be none of them). You also have a few different modes to choose from, practice, single race, and season. Just like most sports games the season is the best, where you race against the other drivers and try to get the most points by finishing better than the other drivers, winning the pole, and leading the most laps. The cars handle different according to your set-up, chassis, and engine.
You have all the real chassis and engines to choose from. Engines: Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Ford Cosworth, and Toyota. Chassis: Reynard, Lola, Penske, and Swift. A very realistic AI helps make this game even better. Sometimes the AI controlled cars wreck themselves, make mistakes, and have their own pit strategy. It also has very realistic drafting and passing. You can choose from automatic and manual transmission. The controls are simple and easy to use. Triangle is reverse, Circle gives you a view of what’s behind you, X is the gas, Square is the breaks, L1 and R1 shift up and down, L2 and R2 give you a view of what is to your left and right. Left turns left and right is right and select changes the camera angle.

Graphics - 9/10

The graphics in this game are pretty good. The cars and paint jobs all look real. The track and grass look just like they’re supposed to. Braking hard and sliding through a turn leaves realistic skid-marks even though after a few laps they disappear. This is one of the first of only a few to have fairly realistic flipping except the occasional bug that would cause the cars to go way up in the air and sort of fly up there for a long time and sometimes it would flip a bit easier than normal. The wings and tires looked real when they fell off the car from crashing. The wrecks in this game are all pretty realistic. The cockpit view looked just like the inside of an actual race car and the crowd, signs and background all looked great. The tracks all looked exactly like the real version of them

Sound – 8/10

The sound in this game is good. The engine whine sounds just like its supposed to. Hitting loose tires and wings make a good thud sound. Shifting gears, hitting the wall, the spotter/crew chief, and pit noises all sounded very, very good. Music in this game isn’t that great but is barely heard because of all the noise the engine makes. The only bad thing is the very annoying glitch where sometimes after pausing the game the sound would go off except the music for some reason.

Replayability – 9/10

With all the different driver, create-a-drive, and many different tracks you should enjoy playing this one over and over. This game also has a very good two-player mode. I enjoyed the season mode best, especially with two-players.

Last Words.

This is a great game definitely worth buying. It’s old so it should only cost about twenty dollars now. Great graphics and sound. A very fun and realistic game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/23/00, Updated 07/23/00