Micro Machines v4
Little racers that couldn't.
Published: July 18, 2006
I've written something like 300+ reviews just for TotalPlayStation alone, and there are times -- most folks in the editorial side of games will likely agree -- when you just sort of get burned out on games that are mediocre. This happened years ago, as most games are by nature sort of middle-of-the-road, neither attempting too much nor venturing too far off the beaten path to make something of a new formula. This is safe, it's what sells games and keeps people from getting pissed off, but it also makes for a fairly boring game.
Micro Machines v4 is boring. It's not without merit, not without sparks of fun, but it's clumsily assembled, horribly unbalanced, and really only serves to update the original premise of Micro Machines racers in the past: a few tiny racers zip around real-world environs in an attempt to break away from the pack. Do that, leave the other guys behind, and they'll lose a point and you'll gain one or two. Whoever does this first wins. The other modes in the game, a sadistic set of time trials and an utterly pointless screw-up-once-and-start-over straight race are nowhere near as fun (and often far, far more frustrating).
So one solid (if flawed) part gets dragged down by two other novel approaches to the same thing and it all feels... mediocre. There's that word again. I got so tired of retrying things that I started making up stories for my racer and his car (which is chosen for you in the main single-player mode). If you're interested in the final score, scroll down and it'll be there waiting for you with our usual comments about the individual points. Right now, though, I'm just going to share a story.
Bennie "Animal" Caruthers had always enjoyed competition. Raised at a young age by a pair of loving fire ants, his early years were clicks and scuttles and conflict with the raw end of nature that had somehow been miraculously staved off from his new parents. Being a man of diminutive stature, and being a man, he was shunned by the ant community, and forced to stick up for himself, fighting many a battle, including one with Joey "Pinchers" Th'ssk, the local ant bully that cost him his left eye.
This was fine; Bennie didn't need that eye anyway. That eye was always a little lazy and the eyepatch he wore now made him feel like a badass. Tubbs McKenzie saw that fire one day as Bennie single-handedly took down three ants twice his size in a bar fight one balmy July evening and felt it was time to put it to good use. As the leader of a racing league centered around high-performance cars that used nature itself as the course, Tubbs knew that fire would come in handy. He saw Bennie's determination. He knew the odds had no sway over this man's life. Bennie Caruthers belonged behind the wheel.
These bygones flooded past Bennie as he steeled himself in preparation for the race ahead of him. The Billiards Cup was no cakewalk, and it didn't help that he always seemed to drift back to the events that lead up to a given race, but as the lights counted down and his foot automatically punched the accelerator, it all melted away faster than the scenery on either side of him turned to a mottled blur as the car lurched into second gear.
Bennie didn't know the other guys he was racing against, he never did. He didn't care. It was the rush of racing what kept him centered, and he was not about to worry about what was whipping through the mind of the 30-something gentleman that he just used to lessen the forces of inertia to keep himself on the table. He spied the laugh lines of that man deepening as his mouth contorted into a scream, the smell of burnt felt mixing with liquefied varnish as four little spinning tires transferred from the bumpers of the table to the lacquered wood and then connected with empty space.
Micro Machines v4 is boring. It's not without merit, not without sparks of fun, but it's clumsily assembled, horribly unbalanced, and really only serves to update the original premise of Micro Machines racers in the past: a few tiny racers zip around real-world environs in an attempt to break away from the pack. Do that, leave the other guys behind, and they'll lose a point and you'll gain one or two. Whoever does this first wins. The other modes in the game, a sadistic set of time trials and an utterly pointless screw-up-once-and-start-over straight race are nowhere near as fun (and often far, far more frustrating).
So one solid (if flawed) part gets dragged down by two other novel approaches to the same thing and it all feels... mediocre. There's that word again. I got so tired of retrying things that I started making up stories for my racer and his car (which is chosen for you in the main single-player mode). If you're interested in the final score, scroll down and it'll be there waiting for you with our usual comments about the individual points. Right now, though, I'm just going to share a story.
Bennie "Animal" Caruthers had always enjoyed competition. Raised at a young age by a pair of loving fire ants, his early years were clicks and scuttles and conflict with the raw end of nature that had somehow been miraculously staved off from his new parents. Being a man of diminutive stature, and being a man, he was shunned by the ant community, and forced to stick up for himself, fighting many a battle, including one with Joey "Pinchers" Th'ssk, the local ant bully that cost him his left eye.
This was fine; Bennie didn't need that eye anyway. That eye was always a little lazy and the eyepatch he wore now made him feel like a badass. Tubbs McKenzie saw that fire one day as Bennie single-handedly took down three ants twice his size in a bar fight one balmy July evening and felt it was time to put it to good use. As the leader of a racing league centered around high-performance cars that used nature itself as the course, Tubbs knew that fire would come in handy. He saw Bennie's determination. He knew the odds had no sway over this man's life. Bennie Caruthers belonged behind the wheel.
These bygones flooded past Bennie as he steeled himself in preparation for the race ahead of him. The Billiards Cup was no cakewalk, and it didn't help that he always seemed to drift back to the events that lead up to a given race, but as the lights counted down and his foot automatically punched the accelerator, it all melted away faster than the scenery on either side of him turned to a mottled blur as the car lurched into second gear.
Bennie didn't know the other guys he was racing against, he never did. He didn't care. It was the rush of racing what kept him centered, and he was not about to worry about what was whipping through the mind of the 30-something gentleman that he just used to lessen the forces of inertia to keep himself on the table. He spied the laugh lines of that man deepening as his mouth contorted into a scream, the smell of burnt felt mixing with liquefied varnish as four little spinning tires transferred from the bumpers of the table to the lacquered wood and then connected with empty space.
