Overview- Critic & User
Reviews - Videos &
Screenshots
News- Codes
& FAQs - Gameplay
Controls - Similar
Games
Answers
Bundles
Critic & User Reviews
IGN Review of Cruis'n
When it comes to racing games, the IGN Nintendo team seems to have a unanimous guilty pleasure for faster, arcade-geared racers. Over the years we've embraced games like San Francisco Rush, F-Zero GX, and Wii's launch racer Excite Truck for delivering some seriously fast, over-the-top action. You can keep your Gran Turismo series; just give us speedometers that go over 350MPH and jumps that'll launch us 300 feet in the air. Is that too much to ask? So when we first got wind that Midway's Cruis'n series would be heading to Wii, we had high, high hopes. As it turns out, however, Midway's latest racer is Cruis'n by name alone, as this budget racing title will do very little to win over anyone familiar with what the true Cruis'n games offered.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, we'll lay out the facts. Despite what it may look like at first glance, Cruis'n is not an original title. Losing the rights to The Fast and the Furious license, Midway has removed the name off this racer's tag and instead replaced it with a name we all know and remember, so you'll still have the same tracks, cars, and gameplay that hit arcades a few years back. There's even a track based on "Race Wars", which is directly taken from the first movie's plot. In fact, remnants of the old game can be found everywhere, as the Nissan Skyline (another favorite from The Fast and the Furious) is a selectable car, there's an emphasis on NOS boosting, and billboards along the side of the road still ask "Are You Fast Enough?" as you whiz by. In short, everything is here from the arcade version but the name.
So what exactly do you get for your $30? Cruis'n offers 12 import tuner cars, and 12 tracks, along with two player split-screen play, arcade mode, and a circuit mode where you'll select a car and rip through each track in the game in an attempt to score big cash for your wins and unlock new vehicles. Since it's an arcade game at heart, however, it's inherently one-dimensional and overly simple, as this is basically a 12-level game that can be ripped through in just over an hour. Of course you'll get the customization aspects found in the original version as well, but it's extremely limited, basically letting you select one upgrade before each race, ignoring the cash you won from the previous race entirely. Instead, cash is pooled into an overall account, which unlocks new cars as your bankroll grows. You don't spend the cash along the way though, so it's as much as point system as it is actual funds.
As for the in-game feel of Cruis'n, we'll admit it has its entertaining moments. The tilt control works well for steering (it's a Wii-mote only game), and the ridiculous air time from games like Rush 2042 make a return, as you can double-tap the gas and tip up the front of your car, putting it in prime position to launch off slower cars and go flipping through the air. Where the experience again sours, however, is in the lack of any sort of graphical update, and the extremely poor technical offerings overall. The game's frame-rate is a mess, often freezing for moments at a time when things get crazy on the track, or popping at a ridiculous rate for the first ten seconds or so of each race's start. In addition, any time you switch songs while driving (the B trigger), the game will freeze for a moment to access the new track, also throwing off the experience for no apparent reason.
On the graphical side, Cruis'n has received no noticeable update from the arcade version. The car models look extremely basic and low-poly, lighting and textures on both cars and level geometry are first generation GameCube at best, and the overall product is one of the weakest graphically on Wii. In regards to audio, generic techno music is coupled with some classically bad (not necessarily a bad thing) arcade VO, with some strange cut-off and looping happening throughout. We've had sound effects get stuck on repeat, and even had a race during the back half of the game where all audio aside from our own car's engine cut out. As if it wasn't obvious beforehand, Cruis'n was a quick port, and still has some technical issues that needed sorting out.
©2007-12-07, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Before we get ahead of ourselves, we'll lay out the facts. Despite what it may look like at first glance, Cruis'n is not an original title. Losing the rights to The Fast and the Furious license, Midway has removed the name off this racer's tag and instead replaced it with a name we all know and remember, so you'll still have the same tracks, cars, and gameplay that hit arcades a few years back. There's even a track based on "Race Wars", which is directly taken from the first movie's plot. In fact, remnants of the old game can be found everywhere, as the Nissan Skyline (another favorite from The Fast and the Furious) is a selectable car, there's an emphasis on NOS boosting, and billboards along the side of the road still ask "Are You Fast Enough?" as you whiz by. In short, everything is here from the arcade version but the name.
So what exactly do you get for your $30? Cruis'n offers 12 import tuner cars, and 12 tracks, along with two player split-screen play, arcade mode, and a circuit mode where you'll select a car and rip through each track in the game in an attempt to score big cash for your wins and unlock new vehicles. Since it's an arcade game at heart, however, it's inherently one-dimensional and overly simple, as this is basically a 12-level game that can be ripped through in just over an hour. Of course you'll get the customization aspects found in the original version as well, but it's extremely limited, basically letting you select one upgrade before each race, ignoring the cash you won from the previous race entirely. Instead, cash is pooled into an overall account, which unlocks new cars as your bankroll grows. You don't spend the cash along the way though, so it's as much as point system as it is actual funds.
As for the in-game feel of Cruis'n, we'll admit it has its entertaining moments. The tilt control works well for steering (it's a Wii-mote only game), and the ridiculous air time from games like Rush 2042 make a return, as you can double-tap the gas and tip up the front of your car, putting it in prime position to launch off slower cars and go flipping through the air. Where the experience again sours, however, is in the lack of any sort of graphical update, and the extremely poor technical offerings overall. The game's frame-rate is a mess, often freezing for moments at a time when things get crazy on the track, or popping at a ridiculous rate for the first ten seconds or so of each race's start. In addition, any time you switch songs while driving (the B trigger), the game will freeze for a moment to access the new track, also throwing off the experience for no apparent reason.
On the graphical side, Cruis'n has received no noticeable update from the arcade version. The car models look extremely basic and low-poly, lighting and textures on both cars and level geometry are first generation GameCube at best, and the overall product is one of the weakest graphically on Wii. In regards to audio, generic techno music is coupled with some classically bad (not necessarily a bad thing) arcade VO, with some strange cut-off and looping happening throughout. We've had sound effects get stuck on repeat, and even had a race during the back half of the game where all audio aside from our own car's engine cut out. As if it wasn't obvious beforehand, Cruis'n was a quick port, and still has some technical issues that needed sorting out.
©2007-12-07, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved