Arthur! Ready to Race

Arthur! Ready to Race
Everyday when you’re crashin' down the street, into everybody that you meet...
Genre(s): Edutainment Racing Platform(s): PlayStation Release: November 1, 2000 Developer(s): Runecraft Publisher(s): The Learning Company Country: United Kingdom Series: Arthur

Arthur! Ready to Race is a 2000 video game developed by Runecraft and published by The Learning Company, based on the long-running American/Canadian animated educational children's TV show, Arthur. It was released on November 1, 2000 only in North America.

Plot

Arthur and his friends (Francine Frensky, The Brain, Binky Barnes, Muffy Crosswire, and Buster Baxter) need to make the best cart they can. Cameo appearances by Arthur's younger sisters (D.W. and Kate Read) and his mother (Mrs. Jane Read) can also be seen.

Why It's Not a Wonderful Kind of Day

1. The graphics look downright hideous to look at, even for PS1 standards.
2. Annoying voice acting with most of the characters' original voice actors not reprising their roles (Arthur is the most obnoxious of all of the characters).
3. Creepy character designs, such as the disturbing looking people in the shops in Elwood City, mainly due to the atrocious graphics.
4. Long loading screens.
5. The game is way too easy, even for a game targeted towards young children. The only real way to lose is to do so on purpose.
6. When you press the d-pad while racing in a cart, it creates an annoying sound effect.
7. Generic plot.
8. It's really boring and uninteresting for a game that's supposed to have "adventure style gameplay"; most of the time you just do chores for people when exploring Elwood City.
9. Hilariously bad and cringeworthy cutscenes that could give the cutscenes from the CDI Zelda games a run for their money.
10. When Arthur has a dream about him in a cart being visited by Bionic Bunny, he asks for another car. Why?! Arthur's friends liked the last car he was in before the cutscene, so what's the point of creating another one if they already have a perfectly working cart?
11. Outdated hardware: It was released for the PlayStation in November 2000, it should be noted that at the time the PlayStation 2 was out, so why not release it for that?
12. The characters have bizarre movements; for example, Arthur runs like he just crapped his pants.
13. The races aren't even races because for one, you don't race against anybody and secondly, they're more like time trials than anything.
14. It's extremely short and can be completed in about 16 minutes and 20 seconds.
15. False advertising: It says that you can race against the computer and solve puzzles in the Sugar Bowl and the pet shop, but those features are never implemented in the actual game. It also says that you buy stuff with the Bionic Bunny cards, when you actually buy them with the Arthur coins.
    • Also, despite the racing aspect being shoved in your face, most of the time you're doing chores for people when exploring Elwood City.
    • And despite being labeled as an "Edutainment" game, there is nothing educational anywhere in the game.
16. The infamous Jack’s Jokes shop where you hear a ton of cringe-worthy knock-knock jokes that use everyday words as puns and don't do anything clever like the show (according to shnick1990).
17. The ending is nothing too special. When you complete the game, after the final cutscene ends, the game basically resets to the beginning, and that's it.

The Only Redeeming Quality

1. The soundtrack is decent.

Reception

The game currently has a rating of 4.7/5 on CoolROM.com.

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