Video Game / Cars (THQ)

(aka: Cars)

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Cars: The Video Game is a tie-in racing game to the first Cars 1 movie, developed by Rainbow Studios and published by THQ for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, Wii, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance, released on June 6, 2006.

The game takes place at some point after the events of the movie, with the player taking control of Lightning McQueen as he trains for the new Piston Cup season to defeat Chick Hicks once and for all. As he explores Radiator Springs, Ornament Valley, and Tailfin Pass, Lightning can compete in various events, such as competing in road races against new foreign cars, going Tractor Tipping with Mater, racing to the Wheel Well Motel with Sally, or learning to powerslide with Doc.

The game would be the first entry in THQ's Cars video game trilogy, followed by Cars: Mater-National Championship in 2007 and Cars: Race-O-Rama in 2009.

Cars: The Video Game features the following tropes:

• Abandoned Mine:
  • Tailfin Pass has been expanded on to have an abandoned mine. It is the focus of the Delinquent Road Hazards race and becomes explorable afterwards, with several jumps and upper routes that can save time and have collectables to find.
  • Ornament Valley has a mining railroad area that has fallen apart from what is implied to be years of disuse. Unlike Tailfin Pass' mine, this mine is entirely blocked off with rocks and sand and cannot be entered.
• Adapted Out: Despite the rest of the Radiator Springs townsfolk appearing, Red is completely absent.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • Radiator Springs, Ornament Valley, and Tailfin Pass have all been expanded on with new landmarks:
    • Radiator Springs now has a forest, a maze of rocky mountains by the theatre, and a large canyon area (with Sarge opening a boot camp nearby) on the outskirts of the town, and the giant radiator cap rock behind the courthouse now has a road surrounding it.
    • Ornament Valley goes from a single empty road to featuring a gas station, an abandoned railway, and the new Rustbucket Stadium. It's also shown that Frank's field - where Mater took Lightning tractor tipping in the original movie - is located in Ornament Valley.
    • Tailfin Pass now has an abandoned mine and a variety of side roads not seen in the movie.
  • Several of the Radiator Springs citizens get more one-on-one interaction with McQueen and slight expansions to their characters, such as Lizzie collecting postcards, Sarge being Not So Above It All and screwing with him during his training sessions, and Fillmore brewing fuel capable of making Lightning boost.
• Adaptational Badass: The entire Radiator Springs crew are capable of keeping up with McQueen in the races.
• Advancing Wall of Doom: One level in Tractor Tipping has both you and Frank on a fixed path, meaning you have to tip the Tractors as you run from Frank.
• Ambiguously Evil: Count Spatula makes plenty of references to food to threaten his opponents, but whether he's really a cannibal or just likes to scare other cars is unclear.
• And the Adventure Continues: After defeating Chick Hicks and winning the Piston Cup, Lightning, Mater, and Sally decide to celebrate by leaving Radiator Springs to go on a journey, in Lightning's words, "Wherever the road takes us."
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: In story mode, certain races and minigames allow you to play as Sally, Mater, Luigi, Sheriff, DJ, Boost, and Wingo as opposed to Lightning.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: The player can use their accumulated points to buy various paint jobs for each playable car.
• Announcer Chatter: During the Piston Cup races, an offscreen announcer comments on what's going on, specifically if Lightning is in the lead or has fallen back. Also expect something to say from the car you're playing as throughout the game.
• The Artifact: Lightning's default paint job retains the yellow rookie stripe on his back bumper from the movie. In the original movie, he was officially classified as a rookie, with the current Piston Cup season being his first and the yellow stripe acting as a visual indicator of that. However, the game takes place during his second Piston Cup season (with some Announcer Chatter even mentioning how he's not a rookie anymore), yet he still retains the rookie stripe on his design.
• Artificial Stupidity: The AI opponents are notoriously stupid and easy to beat, even on Champion difficulty. They never boost and thus almost never reach their top speed unless they're on a straightaway, they frequently crash into background elements, and on tracks with massive shortcuts (such as Sarge's Off-Road Challenge and Radiator Springs GP), they will never take them and suffer a massive time loss if the player does.
• Ascended Extra: The tuner cars (DJ, Boost, Wingo, and Snot Rod) who unintentionally got Lightning lost in Radiator Springs have a race dedicated to them, Wingo is a playable character and they have their own mission where they steal Lightning's gear. They also play a big role in the story mode of the PSP version, serving as the main antagonists and bosses throughout.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Backwards Driving (not to be confused with braking and reversing) looks cool, gets you bonus points for performing it, and is a nice way to taunt your opponents, but it doesn't provide any in-race benefits and reverses your controls.
• Bag of Spilling: Lightning has to relearn how to powerslide and backwards drive, things he could already do in the original movie. Justified as Mack mentions Lightning's been out of shape for some time before the new racing season.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Done when Lightning challenges Chick to another challenge following the Smasherville Speedway event:
  Chick: How 'bout tomorrow night? How 'bout right here? How 'bout tomorrow night right here?!
• Broken Bridge:
  • Ornament Valley and Tailfin Pass are initially blocked off by walls of sand and safety barriers until you complete certain races in the story mode (Sheriff's Chase for the former, and Sally's Wheel Well Sprint for the latter). Cut dialogue in the game files elaborate on this, with Lightning not wanting to disturb Sheriff while he's napping for the former, and not wanting to go up to the Wheel Well Motel without Sally for the latter.
  • Within Tailfin Pass itself, the abandoned mine and all roads connected to it are blocked off with safety barriers until you win the Delinquent Road Hazards race. It's justified in-story as the DRH blocking off that section of the road for everyone until Lightning wins a bet with them and is allowed through.
  • Within Ornament Valley, the way out (to the far west) is also blocked off with walls of sand and safety barriers, similar to Ornament Valley itself and Tailfin Pass. Unlike the aforementioned locations, you don't get to go past that barrier.
• Call-Back: A few of the races in the game call back to various moments from the original movie, which the characters mention in the pre-race cutscenes.
  • Doc's Challenge is based on the scene where Doc challenged Lightning to a race around Willy's Butte (only to let him crash into the canyon), and the credits scene where they actually do race.
  • Sheriff's Chase, which is required to unlock Ornament Valley, calls back to when Lightning first ended up in Radiator Springs and got chased by Sheriff.
  • Sally's Wheel Well Sprint is based on the scene where Lightning and Sally raced each other to the Wheel Well Motel in Tailfin Pass.
• Canon Foreigner: Fletcher, Gerald, El Guapo, Papo, Vince, Sonny, Lenny, Barry, Count Spatula, Ginormous, and The Crippler haven't appeared in any of the Cars movies. However, most of them would return for Cars: Mater-National Championship.
• Collection Sidequest: There are 20 of Lizzie's letters scattered throughout the three hub areas as an optional side-quest.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: For some reason, during the third Piston Cup race at Sun Valley International Raceway, the AI aggression and rubber-banding shoots through the roof, causing the top four, including Chick Hicks to shoot half the track ahead of you right at the beginning, catching up with them is difficult, and even then should you do so, a combination of the other racers deliberately ramming you into the walls, blocking your advances, and just plain coming out of nowhere to overtake you makes winning this race a matter of luck, and whether or not the AI feels like letting you win.
• Continuity Nod:
  • One of Mater's quotes upon being passed references the scene in the movie where Lightning leaves Radiator Springs:
    Mater (movie): I didn't get to say goodbye to him...
    Mater (game): Wow, and I didn't even get to say goodbye.
  • Although most of the unlockable paint jobs are entirely original to the game, Lightning's Dinoco paint job, Doc's Fabulous Hudson Hornet paint job, and Ramone's yellow, green, and red paint jobs are all lifted straight from the movie.
• Cash Gate: Before Lightning can access the Piston Cup race at the end of each chapter, he must first collect a certain number of trophies from other events, with first place finishes awarding more trophies than second or third. Even if you manage to come in first in all of the required races for the chapter, you will likely still have to complete at least some of the optional events to get enough trophies to proceed.
• Don't Try This at Home: One of the lines Lightning says after making a huge jump is him warning the kids to don't try what he just did.
• Dream Intro: The game begins with Lightning participating in the Radiator Springs Grand Prix... which is really a dream he is having. By the time the event is over, Sally wakes him up.
• Dreaming of Things to Come:
  • During Lightning's opening dream of the Radiator Springs Grand Prix, one of the cars competing in the GP is Fletcher, who Lightning won't properly meet until after the dream ends.
  • The Grand Prix itself gets referenced much later on in the game, when Lightning recalls it from his dream and gets the idea to challenge Chick to it, now expanded into Ornament Valley and Tailfin Pass as well. Mater even gets to be the announcer, much like in his dream.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: This game has some rather notable differences from the two games that reused its formula:
  • Lightning uses his original Piston Cup paint job rather than the "casual" paint he wore at the end of the first movie.
  • There is only one monster truck race (Monster Truck Mayhem), and it's considered a road race rather than being in its own category. You can also play as the monster truck characters in normal road races, with Count Spatula being playable instead of an NPC and Monster Mater and Sulley both being absent altogether. Also, Lightning reuses his normal voice lines instead of having unique ones for his monster truck form.
  • There is also only one Rustbucket race (Rustbucket Race-O-Rama), which is also considered a road race rather than getting its own category.
  • Owen Wilson and Paul Newman reprise their roles as Lightning and Doc. In the other two games, they are replaced with Keith Ferguson and Corey Burton.
  • Due to its rushed development, the game's playable roster is rather odd and constrained, with Fillmore and Sarge being NPCs, Luigi only being playable in his own minigame and not regular races, Wingo (a very minor character in the movie) being playable without any of the other tuner cars, and a lot of NPC characters in general. Mater-National notably goes out of its way not to have any minor characters in the playable cast (with the only playable characters being the Radiator Springs citizens, the main Canon Foreigners introduced in that game, and Sulley and Mike) while Race-O-Rama has a much wider roster where every single character who appears in a road race is fully playable with no exceptions.
  • This game has an exclusive "practice" difficulty that lets you drive the course without any opponents, making it the game's equivalent of the time trial modes from other racing games. Mater-National and Race-O-Rama lack such an option (though the former was intended to have one early in development).
  • Lightning does not start off with the backwards drive or boost abilities like he does in later games. He has to earn them by playing through the story mode.
  • Unlike the later two games, several of the minigames are plot-relevant and outright required to progress the story, such as all three stages of Sarge's Boot Camp, and the solo minigames Doc's Lesson: Powerslide, High Speed Heist and Lightning Strikes Back. The only other notable example is the Mack Track Challenge in Race-O-Rama, but purely to demonstrate the new drifting mechanic.
  • Characters are considerably more expressive and animated, frequently tilting and gesturing their bodies, visibly jolting upon landing from a jump or crashing into a wall, and generally looking bouncier and cartoonier. In both Mater-National and Race-O-Rama, the animations were drastically scaled back and made much stiffer.
  • The game's multiplayer mode seems to be a complete afterthought, with most tracks being disabled outright and very few modes available to choose from. The later titles have better multiplayer functionality, with every track being available to play and more modes available.
• Easter Egg:
  • While Lightning is in parking and you hold the steering stick to the left or right and slowly start to move him, he'll do a donut as long as you hold the gas button down.
  • You can enter the code "CHMPION" in the cheat menu to unlock the Champion difficulty for arcade mode. However, if you enter it as your profile name instead, not only will it stay unlocked permanently, but the story mode will also allow you to play it in Champion difficulty.
• Easy-Mode Mockery: Playing story mode on Compact locks the player out of several races and events, such as North Desert Dash, Sarge's Boot Camp and all three Chapter 5 GPs. In the Xbox 360 version, you also cannot get achievements on Compact mode.
• Endless Daytime: Tailfin Pass is the only hub without a (story-dependent) day/night cycle. The sun is always up there, even if you are entering it from the midnight Radiator Springs, and all events there also take place at daytime.
• Girl's Night Out Episode: Sally's Sunshine Circuit, which has the player take control of Sally as she takes part in a race with Flo, Mia, and Tia.
• Heist Episode: The High Speed Heist minigame has the player controlling the Delinquent Road Hazards (first DJ, then Boost, then Wingo) as they perform a heist to steal Lightning's gear from Mack.
• Hijacked by Ganon: In the PSP version of the game, the Delinquent Road Hazards are set up as the main antagonists, with the Radiator Springs citizens having to beat each of them in a race to get them to leave. However, after all four are defeated, Chick Hicks reveals himself to be the true main antagonist of the game, with the DRH all actually working for him the entire time.
• Home Stage: Several characters have tracks associated with them in Arcade mode, which guarantees that they will show up as CPU opponents even if you're not playing as them:
  • Mater has Radiator Cap Circuit and Mater's Speedy Circuit.
  • Sally has Sally's Sunshine Circuit and Sally's Wheel Well Sprint.
  • Doc has Doc's Challenge and Doc's Check Up.
  • Sheriff has Sheriff's Chase.
  • Fillmore has Boostin' With Fillmore.
  • Sarge has Sarge's Off-Road Challenge.
  • Chick Hicks has Chick's Challenge, Radiator Springs GP, and Ornament Valley GP.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels:
  • The story mode has two difficulty levels:
    • Full Size, which features five chapters and features every event the game has;
    • Compact, which features three and is designed for younger players, cutting out several of the harder races for a more streamlined experience.
  • Within free play, there are four difficulty levels:
    • Practice; this difficulty has no opponents and is designed to let players practice each track.
    • Rookie
    • Pro; the difficulty the story mode is set to by default.
    • Champion; story mode can be set to this difficulty by inputting "CHMPION" as the profile name.
• Idle Animation: If Lightning doesn't drive for a bit, he will eventually doze off.
• It's a Wonderful Failure: Failing certain minigames results in a short animation:
  • Getting caught by Frank or running out of time in Tractor Tipping results in a short cutscene of Frank chasing Lightning and Mater out of his field.
  Lightning: Woah!
  Mater: Ru-unnn! He's gonna get ya!
  • Losing the current chase target in Sheriff's Hot Pursuit shows a short cutscene of Sheriff sadly returning to his sign and contemplating getting another tune-up from Doc.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: It's mentioned near the start of the game that Chick Hicks won the Piston Cup and Lightning sacrificed his victory to help The King finish.
• Lightning Bruiser: Fittingly, Lightning McQueen himself has some of the best overall stats in the game, with maxed out speed, high acceleration, and decent handling and stability. Chick Hicks is no slouch either, sharing the same stats as Lightning with slightly higher stability.
• Lost in Character: After participating in a monster truck rally, Lightning gets a little too into the aggressive personality of the other monster trucks. Mater has to talk him out of it after the race is over.
• Marathon Level: Several of the later tracks and Piston Cup races get really long as the game goes on. In particular, the Delinquent Road Hazards track has each lap take roughly two minutes to complete, meaning that the entire track takes at least six minutes to complete on average (even with shortcuts).
• Minigame Game: The Nintendo DS version of the game features 13 different minigames.
• Multi-Slot Character:
  • Lightning is playable in both racecar and monster truck forms, with both forms being considered separate characters in the character select. In fact, it's not uncommon to wind up with normal Lightning as an opponent when playing as Monster Lightning in free play.
  • In the PSP version, Doc Hudson is playable in both his normal and Fabulous Hudson Hornet forms, with the latter only being accessible through a cheat code. Both versions have roughly the same stats, but the Fabulous Hudson Hornet can reach 211MPH while boosting, as opposed to Doc (and all other heavyweight racers) who can only reach 210MPH.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Some levels in the Tractor Tipping minigame have you pushing carts into pits so you can go across them to access other areas. However, it's possible to block off some of the tractors with the cart without tipping them first, at which point the game will say "You blocked a tractor!" and you instantly fail the level.
• One-Steve Limit: Oddly, averted not with a character, but with a track. There are two tracks called Radiator Springs Grand Prix in the game, one at the start, and one near the end. To differentiate them, the first one is called Radiator Springs Grand Prix as-is, while the second is shortened to Radiator Springs GP.
• Reformulated Game: The console and PC versions are open-world racing games, the PSP and GBA versions eschew the hub worlds and have a completely different selection of tracks, and the DS version is a Minigame Game.
• Retired Badass: Both Doc and The King are retired from racing, but it doesn't slow them down at all.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After the tuner cars steal Lightning's gear from Mack, the minigame Lightning Strikes Back has Lightning chasing them down and repeatedly ramming them to get it all back.
• Secret Level: In the console versions of the game, the cheat code TRGTEXC unlocks an additional Mater-themed race and minigame to play. Mater's Speedy Circuit is a short five-lap race around Radiator Springs, while Mater's Countdown Cleanup has the player, as either Lightning or Mater, collecting junk around Radiator Springs under a time limit.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: The Lizzie's Postcard Hunt minigame sidequest ends with Lightning successfully finding all of Lizzie's postcards and returning them to her... except she, in her senility, forgot she lost them to begin with, then assumes she simply left them on the table where Lightning put them. Lightning is mildly annoyed about her lack of gratitude.
• The Stinger: After the credits, Lightning points out he didn't put his Piston Cup up in his trailer, but in a safe place; the next scene shows it in the window of the Medical Clinic, next to Doc's three Piston Cups.
• Tempting Fate: The opening cutscene for Lizzie's Postcard Hunt has Lightning promising to find Lizzie's postcards, assuming that they "couldn't have gone too far". As he (and the player) will discover, several of them went really far, often requiring some intense exploration and platforming to reach throughout the three hubs.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: This otherwise realistic racing game also has several speed-based platforming segments, usually involving Lightning using his jump and boost abilities to jump off ramps and reach high places with postcards on them.
• The Unfought: Mater, Darrell Cartrip, and the King are never raced against at any point in the story, despite being playable characters. The latter two don't even show up in Arcade mode as opponents, only when you're playing as them.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • You can ram into other cars and send them flying as much as you want in the hub world, and even in races. They'll even call you out for it!
  • The Tailfin Pass GP has Chick Hicks waiting at the mission point outside the Wheel Well Motel... which just so happens to be near the cliff overlooking Radiator Springs. So if you're feeling so inclined, you can ram Chick off the cliff to his demise.
• What the Hell, Hero?: If Lightning bumps into an NPC, they'll shout something like this.
• What the Hell, Player?: Doc will call the player out if they crash while playing as him:
  Doc: Stay on the road, buddy, that's what it's for.
  Doc: You need drivin' lessons?