More Articles on Micro Machines V4
Micro Machines V4Codies Confirm Micro Machines V4Micro Machines Return! [Update]Latest Reviews
Guitar Hero: On TourSecret Agent ClankWe Love Golf!Ferrari Challenge Buzz! Quiz TVUser Reviews
There are currently 0 User Reviews for Micro Machines V4Write your own review for this game today and you will receive 100 Gamer Points.
Click here to register
Micro Machines V4 Review
Jon Wilcox
30/06/2006
The slogan always said they came in packs of five...somewhat ironic given V4's scores...
Bursting onto the scene at the end of the 1980s and becoming one of the iconic toys of the 1990s, Micro Machines were enjoyed by kids across North America and Europe, and loathed by parents who treaded on them barefoot. Hundreds of the miniature vehicles were available 'in packs of five', spawning the first in the series of videogames back in 1991 for the NES.
Since then, the brand has pretty much died, with the videogame adaptations also falling off the radar since Infogrames released 'Micro Machines' in 2002. Back in the hands of the original developer (and publisher) of the very first title fifteen years ago, Micro Machines V4 on PlayStation2, PSP, PC, and DS (due in mid-July) aims to follow in the footsteps of Codies' Sensible Soccer 2006, and reinvigorate this dormant brand.
Or should that be dead brand?
The thing is, whilst it might have seemed like a good idea to bring back Micro Machines, V4 actually feels more like a resurrection than a reinvigoration. For the past four years gamers might have harked back and reminisced about playing Micro Machines on their NES or MegaDrives like a dearly departed friend, but how many can say that they exhumed that friend in an attempt to bring them back from the great beyond? Quite frankly if you are one of those people, then it's quite a sick practice, you Grave digger. Anyway, back to the point: was there ever any need to produce a new Micro Machines title for the present generation?
As with Micro Machines titles of the past, V4 is more fun to play as a multiplayer game. Though it comes with an extensive Single Player mode across four difficulties, seventeen environments, several race types, and fifty racetracks, playing V4 solo ranges from too easy to frustrating in the most pure way.
Even during early races, V4 returns to the old days of "one slip and you've lost the race"; there's no prizes for second place, and a mistake (even as slight as not taking a corner at the optimal angle) means that it's just easier to restart the race and try again. The various weapons and gadgets dotted throughout the courses, such as the machine gun, plasma gun, dice bombs, and daisy cutters, do at least have the desired effect of slowing down the competition but with the steep challenge of having to catch up with them within such a short time span almost makes them redundant at times. Far less frustrating, to the extent that 'slight enjoyment' could be used to describe the experience, are the Battle Cup and Checkpoint Cup racetypes.
Battle Cup gametypes are quintessentially Micro Machines, bringing back memories of the original title in 1991. Racing an unlimited number of laps, the cars win points by pulling ahead of the competition by a certain distances, with points removed from the tallies of the other competitors. Get ten points, and you win. Though quite a broken, stop/start experience at times, the gametypes really becomes tense in Multiplayer when all of the cars refuse to drop back, and races can last for a lot more laps than the regular three. Checkpoint Cups, rather obviously, are filled with checkpoint based races where cars race on their own. Whilst not as original across the genre as the Battle Mode, certain tracks bring an added intensity, none more than when trying to dodge in between toy train sets. Once again however, the lifespan of race after race gets tiresome quite quickly, with a repetition that's evident in pretty much every area of the game.
Forgetting the likes of Silverstone or Donnington, world class interior tracks such as 'Pool Table', 'Bathroom', and 'Loft' are joined for the first time with exterior environments such as the 'Garden' and even the sludgy waters of the 'Sewers'. There are a lot of tracks available in the game, there's no denying that, and there is plenty of variety (certainly visually), but at the same time it remains quite samey. Obstacles from rotary blades, pool cues, and kitchen hobs, throw in something a little more than real-scale tracks (when was the last time you drove through a dollop of marmalade in any of the PGR games?) harking back to real-world Micro Machines racing on the kitchen table.
Expanding the gameplay of V4 beyond Single Player mode, Multiplayer Mode as it's always been, is the most fun in the game. Two gametypes are available with up to four players: All-Against-All (a multiplayer version of Battle Mode) and Team Game (Team based Battle Mode). Instantly pick-up-and-playable because of the 'banter factor', it nonetheless is playable for short bursts, and it's hard to see anybody really playing multiplayer for stints lasting hours on end. The implementation of a Track Editor also expands on the gameplay of V4; easy to use and with the option to create a number of varied tracks that can be shared with friends online, it's a small addition to the game as a whole that can at best be described as padding.
As you'd expect from a game based on plastic toys, the control system is basic and the handling light; in other words, don't expect manual gear systems and other 'real car' customisations. Reduced to accelerating, braking, and firing the different power-ups available on-track, gameplay is simple and easily picked up. The fact that developers Supersonic Software have once again implemented split-player control systems (where two players can share a single controller simultaneously) just shows how raw, or should that be basic, racing actually is in V4. It's pure Micro Machines as it always has been, and at least it's faithful in that respect. But like so many aspects of V4, it merely brings up the question of whether the franchise had to be resurrected at all.
With over two hundred different types of vehicles (rising to around eight hundred if you're perfectionist and collect the different colours), collection plays a big part in Micro Machines V4. Rewards from winning races come in the form of a new set of cars, what else, which can be accessed in the Library. It's all very Micro Machines, but collecting the little cars is by no means satisfying; there's little compulsion to continue through the game just get that final few vehicles missing. At least V4's online/LAN trading system means that finishing the collection isn't reliant on actually completing all of the races in the game.
