What's Hot: Thrilling high speed combat racing; great 2-player game; slick style

What's Not: No online play; annoying audio

Expectations going into “movie games” are generally low, given their history of being usually nothing more than mere marketing tie-ins to whatever big movie is out at the time. But here’s a surprise for you: Speed Racer is actually a lot of fun.

It shares the same style as the movie, complete with crazy seemingly drug induced visuals and car-fu racing, but uses it only as a front for a strong racing base that easily rivals the quality of other racing games on the Wii.

The game is only loosely based around the movie, and while you can race as the titular Speed Racer you can also race as a bevy of other characters including Racer X, Trixie, and other more obscure racers from the canon. Each racer has unique stats including top speed, acceleration, handling, and strength which play a big part in how they stack up with other racers. You can race in either championship races made up of between two and four circuits, single races, or time trials to hone your skills. Controlling your racer is a simple matter of titling the Wiimote to steer, pressing 2 to accelerate and 1 to brake, and shifting the Wiimote in a variety of ways to perform car-fu moves.

In the single player game, before every race, you player have the option to request, accept, and break alliances. These alliances are often a large help as allies will not try to damage you and will allow you to draft behind them for a speed boost. Also on the track are rivals who will always be there to slam into you and generally harass you even if it means it slows them down a bit. This system allows for a small amount of strategy, as it can be beneficial to have a few allies on the track while at the same time leaving enough to rough up with car-fu on your course for the checkered flag.

Car-fu is a sort of combat system that is dependant upon the racers making forceful contact into one another. By rapidly shifting the Wiimote to either side you can slam into racers in that direction to send them spinning or sliding out of control. Doing the same while holding a d-pad direction makes you spin instead which is even more effective at sending racers flying but is also more risky. Rapidly lifting the Wiimote makes your racer hop into the air, complete with optional d-pad modifiers for flips and barrel rolls, and landing on enemies can ruin their day as well.

Performing car-fu isn’t just useful for taking down racers, but for every 1,000 points of car-fu you earn you gain one championship standing point. This means that even if you take second place in a race you may still have earned the most points due to simply slamming into other racers along the way. Gaining enough car-fu points in a race to really make a difference is hard to do, but over a championship it can easily add up to an extra handful of standing points you wouldn’t have otherwise. Whoever has the fastest lap in a race receives an additional championship point as well.