"Though I can see a lot of flaws in the game today, for what it _was_ Wacky Wheels was a really fun and enjoyable game."

Introduction
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Wacky Wheels will always have a place in my gaming heart. I invested countless hours upon hours of my childhood addicted to it. I swear, for at least an entire year I was obsessed with Wacky Wheels. Playing it was a daily ritual for me for most of that year. But what made it so addictive? Why after playing the demo of the game did I ask for the full version of the game so quickly?
Was Wacky Wheels a magical gameplay experience or did I just play it so much because I had nothing better to do?

Gameplay
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If you’ve player Super Mario Kart, you’ve played a better version of Wacky Wheels. Wacky Wheels is an obvious rip-off of the SNES version of Mario Kart and this proves to be a very positive thing because Super Mario Kart rocks. Hard.

Wacky Wheels is a kart racing game if you hadn’t established that by now. Eight crazy animals have hijacked go-karts from their zoo (go-karts….. in a ****ing zoo…? uh… Apogee…) and escaped. For reasons unknown they’ve decided to race against each other, all over the world. You can choose from all kinds of animals, including a camel, raccoon, moose, tiger and my personal favourite, Razer the shark.

There are plenty of game modes, the more major ones of which I’ll quickly explain.

The main mode of play has been creatively named Single Player Racing. In it, you can choose to race three different classes, Amateur, Pro and Champion. In each of these classes you can choose 6 or 12 Horse power engines which will affect the speed that you race at. As the class names indicate your opponents will increasingly become tougher as you race through Pro and then Champion classes, however nothing ever get too out of hand in terms of difficulty.

In all three classes you can choose to race Bronze, Silver or Gold races. Each of these packages has 5 races in it. There is also a set of “Bonus” tracks, which were 10 bucks extra when originally ordering the game, or 20 if you bought them separately.
The total number of raceable tracks 30 in the bonus edition, half that in regular! There are also 6 or 12 multiplayer/duck shoot arenas depending on the version of the game you have.

In each race, you burn six laps around the more than reasonably short track. Each race you place in you’ll be awarded points depending on your exact rank. To win either the Bronze Silver of Gold set of races in each class you’ll have to have the most points at the end of the final race.

In your journeys you’ll race across quite a poor variety or tracks. There are about seven or so different terrains; dessert, waterside tracks, go-kart circuits, lava-based races and a couple of others. Tracks are reasonably well designed but quite brief and nothing to really write home about in terms of design.

During races you’ll come across jumps, sharp twists and turns, turbo pads, obstacles such as poles and oil slicks and narrow bridges. You can pick up your usual weapons and items along the way, including fireballs, oil slicks and bombs. As well as these, are you standard weapons, which happen to be………hedgehogs! Strange I know. Even stranger is the way you’ll find them. There are about 10 different characterised hedgehogs that you’ll find placed around the track. Run into one and you’ll get a few hedgehogs to shoot at other players. There are redneck shotgun wielding hedgehogs, hedgehogs taking a crap on a toilet, hedgehogs working out, reading newspapers and much more…… talk about odd. Each hedgehog you run into will give you universal ammo, so it doesn’t matter who you run into, as the ammo you get is the same.

Wacky Wheels has a fair bit of character to it… Apart from the strange hedgehogs and the fact that you are racing as zoo animals that have just broken out of their enclosures, you’ll find some nice elements to the game. If you run into a stack of tyres on one of the “real” go kart tracks, a tyre will fly up and land around your racer, sticking with them right until then end of the race. If you drive into deep water your kart will be submerged and a cute rotating periscope will pop up out of the water to apparently help your character navigate their way once more to dry land.

As well as the normal racing modes of play, there is a time trail mode to keep you coming back to shave valuable slices of time of your best laps, and race totals. Tracks aren’t well-designed enough to truly justify spending the insane amounts of time in this mode as say Super Mario Kart, but it’s a nice addition regardless and one any game of this genre should not be without.

If racing isn’t giving you quite enough enjoyment, why not give the duck shoot game a go? You play in a number of duck shoot/multiplayer shoot out specific arenas, six in the standard version, and twelve in the upgraded version. The idea? Shoot the crap out of as many ducks (in go-karts) as you can. This mode is very simple but quite fun, and I can remember playing it for endless hours and hours, just seeing if I could beat my best scores, as well as my friends best scores. You get two minutes to produce as much duck meat as possible. Years on however I find that due to the very simplistic AI used in this mode, it can quickly lose its unique appeal and enjoyment when you work out how easily you can rack up massive scores with little effort.

The real fun starts when you have a friend over however. The two player modes. You can race all of the single player cups with a friend, competing against each other head-to-head or against the full cast of racers. Multiplayer racing proves to be fun for a fair while, but the true action and fun is found in the battle mode. This is a kart racing death match entitled ‘Shoot Out’. You have to shoot your opponent as much as possible, while avoiding their shots at yourself. Score limits are set prior to the match and first to reach to total wins. Wacky Wheels uses the term “waxed” for kills, e.g. “Peggles has been waxed”. I’m not sure what it is exactly, I’ll go on a bit of a limb here and just assume it was made-up by the team for the game, but that sound so much cooler that “Player 1 got a kill”. I used to spend hours battling against the handful of my friends who happened to also own Wacky Wheels. The game allows split screen single-computer multiplayer as well as network and modem games which are great as they provide both players with an entire screen, as well as reducing the need for both players to be in the same place to be able to play. For a game released in 1994 the inclusion of such modes was pretty cutting edge.

In the two player modes you have six hotkeys, that will pop up a not so friendly message on your opponents screen. A tubby red devil will pop up and perform an action (like mooning them) or hold up a sign (“learn to drive” and “prepare to die” being two or them). These are a great way to distract your opponent, as well as have some friendly fun and are actually the first form of communication between players seen in a multiplayer game ever. Quite revolutionary stuff ;)

Wacky Wheels is good fun. While an obvious rip-off of Mario Kart for the SNES, Wacky Wheels is pretty damn fun to play, and back in the day I loved the simple yet rather enjoyable gameplay.

8.3/10

Graphics
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For its time, Wacky Wheels was one damn sexy game. Great use of sprites, high resolution, colourful, fast moving and smooth. When I first played Wacky Wheels is was very impressed. Compared to many other games of it’s time, Wacky Wheels was aeons ahead of them. Sure it wasn’t pushing the envelope to the max, but it wasn’t too far off it.

From the menu text, to the character sprites, to the tracks and the backgrounds, Wacky Wheels was a great looking game, that made most other PC games out at the time look somewhat pale in comparison.

8.3/10

Sound
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Apogee did a top job aurally on Wacky Wheels. The music is really catchy and suits the characters and personality of the game very well. It’s your typical kart-racing music… if you know what I mean. Some of the tunes you’ll have stuck in your head for days. This speaks volumes for the talent of those that created it, and although you’re not going to be hearing anything you’d really want to listen to outside of the game, for what it’s worth I don’t think that the music could have been much better than it is.

In terms of sound effects and overall aural quality the game doesn’t disappoint. Sample rates of the sound of skidding karts and the like are more than decent and there are effect used in all the right places. Don’t ask how but the rotating periscope that pops up when you find yourself submerged underwater (or lava for that matter) actually sounds like a rotating periscope underwater..

Overall the music is top notch and the sound effects more than sufficient.

8.5/10

Multiplayer
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Ah yes. The multiplayer. Yet another department Wacky Wheels shines in. As mentioned previously, you can race all of the tracks head-to-head with a friend (as well as the option of racing with the other racers as well) and see how you fare at that, but the best modes of multiplayer are the death match games. With the twelve tracks to battle it out on, there is plenty of variety. The ability to tease your friends with the taunt buttons is also great.
Plus you can play serial/modem games.

Wacky Wheels delivers a very fun and addictive selection of two player modes that were among the best of their time. I congratulate Apogee for delivering a two player experience that is equally as enjoyable as the single player.

8.8/10

Originality
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If I never played Mario Kart on the SNES, I would have given this a closer to 8 or 9/10. Fortunately I have played Mario Kart. Wacky Wheels is an obvious rip-off of Mario Kart if I ever saw one. But Apogee knew what they were doing, because they ripped off a great game, and ended up producing a great game as well. If there was one game to steal ideas from, Mario Kart was it. Nice thieving Apogee! Wacky Wheels has got nothing on the great Super Mario Kart, but a lot of great elements were taken from it and included quite competently.
2/10

Controls
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Simple yet effective controls are what I like. Wacky Wheels has your basic movement keys, left and right on the arrow keys turn your car, the down arrow key brakes, alt accelerates, ctrl fires and space performs the sharp 90 degree handbrake turns and that’s all there is to it.

The controls are both effective and responsive. Nothing to complain about here, all you’ll find is well thought out, sufficient, responsive and effective controls.

9/10

Replayability
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If you love Wacky Wheels as much as I did then you’ll find yourself hooked for a long while. After beating every class, on every set of tracks, on both horse powers there is the time trails mode to keep you racing around. Whenever you’ve had enough of the time trails there is the duck shoot mode, which provided me with hours of fun.
When you’re done with the duck shoot mode there is multiplayer. Providing you have someone willing to play with you there are also the multiplayer games to add longevity to the title. Of course there is only so much Wacky Wheels one can take and most people old enough to make sense of this review probably won’t find these modes nearly as appealing as someone closer to the age group the game was designed for, and aim at.

Addictive games are always replayable, but addictive games with multiple single player and multiplayer modes are even better. Wacky Wheels delivers the goods in the replayability department. Providing you enjoy the single player racing, you’re sure to get a decent bit of replay value from the title.

8.9/10

Difficulty
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Back when I first played Wacky Wheels I was about 8 or 9 years old, and I found the game a good challenge, if not slightly on the easy side of matters. Today at 16 years of age, and with much more gaming experience under my belt I find Wacky Wheels is very easy. I can complete the single player modes on the highest classes, at the fastest speeds without any hassles. Wacky Wheels is clearly geared towards a younger audience (around the 8 or 9 year old mark) and thus for anyone else playing, even on the harder classes the game won’t provide much of a challenge, if any at all. Wacky Wheels’ ease doesn’t however particularly take away from its enjoyment too much.

Load Times
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I can remember back to 1994 when I bought Wacky Wheels, and was running it on a similarly dated computer. I can’t remember any load times whatsoever, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. It was a bit chuggy on my mates 386 but it’s all really irrelevant now anyway.
Today, on my 750Mhz PC it is not possible to know if the game had any real load times to speak of, but I suspect that if there were any, that they were minimal, if at all existent.

Pros
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(_) Quite enjoyable gameplay, albeit excessively basic
(_) There are plenty of modes of play, and varying difficulty levels to choose from
(_) Duck Shoot is a great way to escape from single player racing and have some fun
(_) Included are enough multiplayer modes and options to add some extra value to the title for those who wish to play again or with another human
(_) Catchy music
(_) Wacky Wheels stole a lot of ideas and gameplay elements from Super Mario Kart (snes) and most of them were well implemented

Cons
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(_) This is a complete rip-off of Mario Kart for the SNES and despite having two years to improve upon it, still remains a weaker title.
(_) The game is pretty easy for anyone whose age is in double figures.

Buy/rent
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Surprisingly you can still actually buy Wacky Wheels direct from 3D Realms (division of Apogee). It’s only $10USD for the upgraded edition making it pretty good value. Though you’ll breeze through the game, and probably won’t enjoy it near as much as you would have back in ’94 it might be worth ordering, especially if you’ve got youngins around the place. Wacky Wheels was an experience not to miss..

Overall
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Wacky Wheels was one of my all time favourite games when I was younger, right up there with Commander Keen (episode 4e primarily) and Doom. Though today I find the game very easy to beat, and can see a lot of flaws in gameplay but it was still one of the best gaming purchases I have made due to the sheer amount of time I put into the title, and the enjoyment I got out of it.

I’d sure love to see Apogee try their luck at a GameBoy Advance sequel to Wacky Wheels, but chances of that happening are nigh impossible.

Wacky Wheels isn’t a game I’d recommend to you specifically as you’re obviously well above the age group that was in mind when it was produced. I would however suggest looking in to it if you have younger family members etc that would enjoy something such as a good old kart racer. For the $10US that is being asked for Wacky Wheels it would be well worth picking up for old times sake for those out there who grew up playing it.. it’s a really good game, though it does suffer some flaws and is far from original, Wacky Wheels is still a better than average PC kart racer.

Overall
8.6/10 (Rounded to 9/10 for GameFAQs)

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/02/01, Updated 11/05/03