Completion Time: 1h:47m:00s
Rating: 6/10

....................................................................................................

Speeding Through the Swamp

....................................................................................................

I think I made it clear in my previous blog entry on a Shrek game ("Shrek 2") that I'm not a huge fan of "Shrek" as an IP or franchise. So why am I already covering another one of these so soon? Well, certainly the recent footage of the most recent of the films in this series is one of the reasons, and it doesn't hurt that I love kart racers in general. Even the lowest of them I usually find SOMETHING worthwhile there. Muppets, Looney Tunes, doesn't really matter to me. So why not give this a whirl? And you know something, I didn't have that bad of a time with it in general, though the fact that I made my way through it in an extremely short amount of time definitely helped.

There's exploding candy corn in this game?! Sign me up!

....................................................................................................

This Racer DOESN'T Have Layers

....................................................................................................

So the racer starts at a humble enough place. You've got your Quick Races, your Tournaments, and your Multiplayer match mode. There are only 4 characters to begin, and they're the ones that you'd probably most recognize: Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, and Gingy. But don't worry too much, there are a fair amount of unlockable figures hidden behind silhouettes that all but give away their identities. There are only a handful of locations, however, which puts a bit of a damper on things. I guess I don't know how many locales of note could constitute a Shrek game, but you have your standard swamp, dark castle, factory, and Far, Far Away areas. Outside of that, the different tracks are just different variations on the same sort of idea. This is a different PART of the factory, or this is the castle at nighttime as opposed to running around the city streets during the day. It's not even all that pleasant to look at to be honest, but at the very least things are cohesive and the tracks not confusing, so it's passable I suppose.

Dragon's and pits of water do NOT mix

The controls are fairly fluid, and moving about the stage poses little challenge as you get accustomed to steering whatever "wacky" vehicle you find yourself sitting at the helm of. And the interesting thing, which not many licensed kart racers do, is that each of the characters that you use have different stats. Some are heavier and can withstand obstacles better, while others are lighter and speedier. Some are even better at drifting, apparently, though I don't think that the drift mechanics are all that great in this one to begin with, but I'm a stickler for that. And no game can top the drift mechanics of "Crash Team Racing", that's for sure. However, for the Shrek character stats, the main problem is that they don't tell you any of them! You kinda have to experiment a little bit and figure out on your own what each driver's capabilities are, because the game's GUI is minimalistic to a fault. I would like some indication of what I'm doing, please and thank you.

Where are the sliders? Where are the numbers? Where is anything?!

It really is a breeze though, which maybe could lead into another light complaint. But the AI isn't much of a challenge at all, and in fact they're sort of too easy for my liking. I don't think I ever came in anything but first since I picked up the controller to start playing the game, and even the later races in the later Tournaments weren't much of a challenge at all. The other racers rarely seemed to use the powerups they received and far too often deliberately swerved into traps and pits. And it certainly doesn't help that you can just smack other drivers with mallets when they pass by whenever you feel like it, not even as a powerup! I looked around in the settings and didn't really see a difficulty setting, but maybe I overlooked something? I mean, the game itself is fine enough as it is, but actually playing it was a bit of a "meh" experience overall. I was glad I got through it as quickly as I did, in all honesty.

Out of my way, disgusting egg creature

....................................................................................................

Completing the Game

....................................................................................................

Completing this one is a treat, as with a good chunk of kart racers. That's because it's unbelievably simple. First things first: beat each of the Cups in Tournament Mode. There are only 4 of these, and you have to come in first for each of these cups. But given that you have a handful of races to learn the powerups, controls, and stage layouts, there isn't much challenging about this. Once that's done, you've unlocked Mirror Mode. What does this mean for the completion aspect? Well, now there a total of 4 more Cups to come in first on! Each of the original Cups and their respective tracks, but flipped on the Y-axis. Lucky you!

Regular track or mirror track, you've gotta appreciate the design of these areas

As you go through these 8 total Cups, each time you manage to come in first, you'll receive a new character to race with. As with before, these racers have hidden stats and you'll have no idea what you're actually getting into until you just try and race with them. Well, sometimes looking at three tiny pigs versus a giant knight in armor you can surmise what the differences are gonna be when you get in there. But that's it! Nothing more, nothing less. No secret tracks really (unless you consider mirrored tracks to be secret), no special victory cutscenes or something. Just the characters, but given how short and easy the game is, there's a beautiful simplicity in that fact. And I can't really complain that I spent less time than average with this one. Here's a list of the characters you can unlock:

• Goldilocks
• Humpty Dumpty
• Little Red Riding Hood
• Pinocchio
• Prince Charming
• Puss in Boots
• Three Little Pigs
• Thelonious

Little Red and the humanoid wolf she's using as a steed are down for the count!

Somewhat flawed and a tad ugly, and it certainly doesn't do anything groundbreaking for the genre. But there's heart there and the core mechanics themselves are up to snuff, so this is sure to appease most any fan of the kart racing genre, especially someone unlike myself that might have a strong affinity for "Shrek" as its IP and world. There aren't a whole lot of kart racers on the GameCube as a console, unfortunately, so I'll take what I can get. Hopefully I'll get a good opportunity to cover another one of this kind soon.

This is another entry in a series where I go through and complete every GameCube game, as it is the largest part of my video game collection. GameCube Games: 34/652