Disneyland Kart Racer
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| Disneyland Kart Racer

It's a good thing you can't copyright an idea, or the likes of Disneyland Kart Racer would no doubt be hearing from Nintendo about their similarity to Nintendo's mighty Mario Kart.

Racing karts around colourful fantasy tracks, collecting item boxes marked with question marks to get power-ups, then firing these power-ups at opponents in order to score an advantage over them. It's all in Disneyland Kart Racer, and it'll all feel instantly familiar to those who have played Mario Kart.

Of course, this game does have some uniqueness of its own. For starters there's its Disney theme, which means eight Disneyland tracks based around different areas of the famous theme park, such as Space Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean.

It also comes with six of Disney's slightly B-list characters - Jane, Pete, Misty, Starman, Ezra and Yeti. Only a couple are unlocked at the start, but completing tracks unlocks you new ones to play as, each with their own speed, acceleration and strength stats.

Most important, though, is how these races are to compete in, and the verdict is: okay. There's a decent sense of speed in the races - those karts really hurtle around the track. The downside to this is that you feel at times you don't have time to react to upcoming bends and jumps, so winning is more about collecting items to fire at opponents ahead of you than any actual skill in your cornering.

The speed also means there's a reasonable amount of pop-up - scenery comes lurching out of nowhere quite often. It's not catastrophic, though, and at least the game does have plenty of detail surrounding the tracks.

Rocks drop from mountains for you to avoid, and tunnels and bridges provide plenty of obstacles to manoeuvre. No two tracks are the same either - which means there's incentive to get through and see them all.

Another clever incentive to keep you playing is the set of missions each track comes with.

These missions don't have to be completed in order to move onto the next race, but they increase the game's longevity by some way. You might have to complete Space Mountain without missing a ramp, for instance, or Fantasyland without hitting the side of the track once.

They're tough missions, too, which - along with the Easy, Medium and Hard difficulty levels you can choose from - ensure the game is a challenge even for players too old to fully appreciate the charms of Mickey Mouse.

As well as these missions, there are also achievements to complete and upgrades to earn for characters.

Which makes for a fully rounded game, even if the racing isn't spot on. That said, Disneyland Kart Racer has its upsides on the track as well as off - not least the power-up items you can collect on your way around each track, which let you fire laser beams at, drop boulders on and blow up your opponents, among other things.

Good driving rewards you with nitro, which you can activate at any point by pushing 'up' (acceleration is otherwise handled automatically).

It's a game with plenty going for it, and younger players are bound to enjoy the colourful, simple tracks. But the problem lies with the on-rails feel of the driving, which won't win over fans of serious racing games or cartoony kart racers.

With the likes of Fast & Furious and Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart out there, there are better alternatives whatever your preference.

Disneyland Kart Racer

A very generic kart racing game with a Disneyland theme. The tracks are well designed and there's lots of content but the racing itself won't set your mobile phone alight
Score
Kath Brice
Kath Brice
Kath gave up a job working with animals five years ago to join the world of video game journalism, which now sees her running our DS section. With so many male work colleagues, many have asked if she notices any difference.