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 Date: 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, The Brain, Binky, Muffy, and Buster need to make the best cart they can. Cameo appearances by Arthur's younger sisters D.W. and Kate and his mother Jane can also be seen.

Why It's Not a Wonderful Kind of Day to Race

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 CD-i 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. The characters have bizarre movements. For example, Arthur runs like he just crapped his pants.
12. The races aren't even races because for one, you don't race against anybody; secondly, they're more like time trials than anything.
13. It's extremely short and can be completed in about 16 minutes and 20 seconds.
14. False advertising: It says that you can race against the computer and solve puzzles in the Sugar Bowl and 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.
    • Despite being labeled as an "Edutainment" game, there is nothing educational anywhere in the game.
15. 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.
16. 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.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The soundtrack is decent.
2. Even with this Arthur game being bad, at least all of the characters are in-character, and even D.W., who was usually unlikable in this show, is pretty tolerable.
3. Some of the voice acting is great as a result of some of the cast members reprising their roles from the show.

Reception

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

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