Wacky Races

"...I don't even know where to start."

I have no idea why I bought this. I honestly like... I don't even... what the hell was I thinking!?

PRESENTATION:
If you've seen the show, you know how it is. A bunch of funky dudes, the token female character, and their matching vehicles. The most humor I got out of this game, however, was in the instruction manual. The actual game only lets you play four modes, but none of them give out any sort of story or whatever. You just drive.
PRESENTATION: 2/10

GRAPHICS:
The best part of this game, the graphics are actually spectacular. Colorful, vibrant, and nicely animated, everywhere you go and everyone you play as has excellent detail and color. Quite a pretty game.
GRAPHICS: 9/10

SOUNDS:
Very bland music and sound effects. They add absolutely nothing to the game (not that there's much to begin with).
SOUNDS: 1/10

GAMEPLAY:
You drive forward, and that's basically the core of Wacky Races. You've got Arcade, Championship, Time Attack, and Endurance. There are only nine tracks in the whole game and they range between boring and really ****ing boring. And you want to know how far you've gone in the course? Well, there's a ring in the corner of the screen, and you are the dot on it. When the dot gets from one point of the ring to the other, you're done. A ****ing ring with a dot on it. What the hell is this?

And the courses take long. Way too long. Thankfully you can press the start button to immediately end the race, but then you feel kind of like a cheater. Plus that little secret is pretty stupid. And it's tough to get there because you start in last place with every race. Sluggish controls don't help. Neither do the unsatisfying bonuses. Or the character-unique abilities. Yeah, you'd think the individual characters' special traits would add something, but they don't. Honestly, just play as Sergeant Blast and you'll win. The other characters kinda suck in comparison. Sorry for all these fragmented sentences, I just want to get my point across.

Endurance Mode is actually a good idea, though. For every checkpoint reached, the person in last place gets knocked out. A cool idea, but unfortunately it is in Wacky Races and not a better racing game. You might try it a couple times, but it's just as boring as the other cliche racing modes.

Lastly, unlocking the secret characters means you have to enter a password every time you start playing. You can't just save your progress--you have to write down a password and use it every time you race. That's pretty silly.
GAMEPLAY: 2.5/10

LASTING APPEAL:
It actually lasted me kind of long--maybe a couple weeks. You'll want to try out all the characters, and you'll even play after that because you'll try to learn to like it. But you won't like it, and you might just drive your car over it.
LASTING APPEAL: 2.5/10

OVERALL:
I actually sort of liked the cartoon, but I still don't understand why I bought this game. I can't be mad at myself, because before I bought it I had no idea how good it was. But now I do know, and it's pretty terrible. Even if Wacky Races is your favorite TV show of all time (haha...), I can't recommend its Game Boy Color game.
OVERALL: 3.3/10

Thanks for reading =)

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 05/05/08

Game Release: Wacky Races (US, 06/09/00)