Smurf Racer!

"Uh...shouldn't the flag be BLUE and white for this game?"

So many great cartoon shows of the '80s will never have a high-tech video game to call their own: Kidd Video, George of the Jungle, Super Chicken and Tom Slick. Other less deserving ones(Casper, say) take up their spots. Some, such as the Smurfs, deserve several different angles. Smurf Racers provides one and managed to introduce me painlessly to the racing genre I'd so sadly neglected. As in your average episode, the fun may have been over too soon, but it'd seem rather mean to make too demanding a Smurfs game. Gargamel's only there by implication with one race through his lab, and his cat Azrael only appears in the demo, but heck...this game is proof that the idyllic life Smurfs preserved in the cartoon was indeed pleasant and worth saving. I'd even bet the cars are environmentally friendly--after all I don't remember an Oil Lobby Smurf anywhere.

In Smurf Racer there are ten four-car races available from four regions, with Astro Smurf's challenge available after winning the three-race worlds(snowy mountain, Gargamel's castle, Smurf village themed,) on expert and easy level. Experts have to several partial laps in a certain amount of time to get to the next winding pegs that recharge the racers. If not, their car winds down and Brainy Smurf, who is actually helpful for once, drives by on a dragonfly and winds it up after some delay. This adds some tension to the game and forces consistency. I've wound up a few car lengths short of the goal line only to be passed, but I've also gotten away with one.

On later levels courses cross each other over and curve more, often forcing you to hold back on the gas. Still, though the finish time climbs from two minutes to five, the format remains the same: it's a three-lap race, which gives ample time for you to memorize the pattern and make up for early blunders, and the arrows that indicate curves don't hurt either. You should also remember where the power-ups are as they reappear with each lap, and if you're brave enough you can check out the detour, which is longer but can build up your arsenal.

On each course you will find dynamite shot power-ups, which can cause cars directly in front of you to jump in the air and slow down, rockets which give brief accelerations, potions which render you invincible to everything except your own steering mishaps, and barrels which give Smurf-specific distracters to trailing cars. The item each Smurf's car leaves is different, but the results--the car behind running into it skids--is not. There's some learning as to which power-ups you need and when. Swerving for one that can't help(i.e. you can only have one barrel power-up at a time, and you might not need too many missiles if you're in the lead) risk pegging you back in the race for your greed, but more often you'll miss one of the three or four in a lineby a maddeningly slight margin, and if you're not Smurfy enough to contain your disappointment you may lose concentration and run into something. Usually in a game you have to navigate a narrow gap to safety, but here you feel silly as you frequently hit the only gap between power-ups doesn't help you

Yet even multiple errors are not lethal. The pace isn't slow, but nobody ever zips by. In exchange sometimes you have to back up if you hit a wall or obstacle(I always rotate the wrong way to get back on course but that's my fault) which is tricky, although the game's nice enough to point out if you're going the wrong way. I've even managed to fall in a river or lava pit off the edge of the course only to have Brainy on his dragonfly drop me back on my way to a comeback victory.

I've won comebacks on my frst attempt as it's not too tough to get a handle on the courses. Also the opponents seem rather sportsmanlike(how Smurfy,) as they seem very generous allowing you to catch up in this case, or maybe they just aren't that strategically savvy. You're the only one who might hoard your special powers until the end, which allows a physically improbable comeback if you're anywhere within range of the lead. Balanced against the first-person view where you can't see who's behind, the inequities seem tipped in your favor, especially since you can zigzag to confuse anyone behind you but your opponents never figure that out either. I guess Smurfs are better thinking as a team than individuals.

There's also a flag racing game where you run around a closed course however you choose and try to pick up flags before the computer. Running into a wall or getting shot(there are frequent firing and invulnerability power-ups) causes a couple flags to fly out of your machine, so you must hunt your opponent and the flags with caution. However there's only one course, so it's not too hard to master, winning doesn't unlock any secrets, and it's got the dullest background, suspiciously similar to Astro Smurf's challenge without the bubbling lava pools. There's also an easy strategy to take the lead and dodge the computer, so this is also short-lived.

Although Smurf Racer is entertaining to beat there's no variety with the four Smurfs you unlock beating the expert level. The twelve you can choose from each have something different to leave, but this variety is best seen as the computer switches opponents and is less than not only the vast cornucopia of Smurfs you can pick up on eBay but also the ones that actually got to speak in the cartoon. And all these ideas are nice and logical, but I suspect the mechanics have been done before.

Fortunately they are of the sort that were done correctly before, as X to accelerate assures that you won't lurch in some ungodly direction when turning with the directional buttons, yet you still have enough buttons to brake/reverse or use the powers you picked up on the race track. You can even honk(politeness in a racing game, to warn of an impending crash--how Smurfy) or jump over a car you're closing in on, which is fun when I remember to use it. Unfortunately they never placed obstacles in the middle of the road to jump over, which could've added challenge that would've used this button feature, maybe as an expert-only feature to make more of a difference from easy.

Yet despite the game's unnecessary simplicity the graphics are rather good, from the ice patch to the log bridges you must drive over(the first case where I actually found the controller vibration clever) to the waterfalls and houses you run by or through in Smurf Village and eventually the laboratory in Gargamel's castle. There's no 'real-world' explosion action, the ways to wipe out other cars are cute, and there's no real emphasis on technology--for someone who never got into car fixing mechanics, it's nice to have a game that says, don't worry about it. It even allows poor sports to reset the game quickly and being as simple as it is the load time is negligible.

I am no longer young enough to be wowed enough to believe SmurfBerry crunch is different from other sugared cereals just because it's blue and red...in fact, I'm too apathetic to check if it's still sold. These days I head straight for the Wheaties box, oblivious to the status of Count Chocula and even resisting Lucky Charms's periodic marshmallow color-shuffling. But despite a healthy dose of disenchantment one can pass off as wisdom, I also recognize that what there is of Smurf Racers is genuinely fun, and sometimes it's good to have a colorful introduction to a genre I never particularly wanted to master, or a game with very moderate challenge that offsets the bigger purchases that tend to frustrate.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/17/02, Updated 11/22/02