Cars 3: Driven to Win
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| Cars 3: Driven to Win | ||||||||||||||
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 Thanks to Warner Bros.'s dirty hands, it's driven to lose.
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Cars 3: Driven to Win is a racing video game based on the 2017 film Cars 3, developed by Avalanche Software and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It is the first Disney game not published by Disney Interactive Studios since its shutdown in May 2016. This is because Time Warner acquired Avalanche Software from Disney (later WarnerMedia and now Warner Bros. Discovery) before the game's release, so the finished game was released under the Warner Bros. name even though the Cars franchise is not owned by it.
Gameplay
Cars 3: Driven to Win is a racing game like many of the "Cars" games that precede it. Like in Cars 2: The Video Game, players can collect weapons along the track and use them against their competitors as they drive.
Driven to Lose Qualities
- The game is just a rehash of Cars 2: The Video Game, but with less base game content.
- The manual contains only four pages, so it's barely helpful.
- Fewer characters than the predecessor having only 23 compared to Cars 2's 58 (including skins for certain characters and DLC), which is a big issue since a Cars game hasn't had a small playable cast like this since the 2006 game (except the PSP version).
- There are some minor glitches where you can go into places you aren't supposed to be in.
- The plot is almost non-existent.
- Out of the 17 unlockable characters, two of them which are just special paint jobs of Lightning McQueen (Fabulous Lightning McQueen) and Mater (Mater the Greater), which just goes to show how much effort was put into this game's roster.
- The Hall of Fame objectives basically serve as an arbitrary checklist of simple tasks to do instead of actual missions.
- Boring track designs with the tracks being incredibly long and taking as long as 5-6 minutes to complete!
- No online multiplayer.
- The PS3 and Wii U versions only support up to 2 players, which doesn't make sense considering other platforms (which are the other current-gen systems and the Xbox 360) support up to 4.
- Speaking of which, it is pointless for this game to be released on the Wii U, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 in 2017, especially since that these ports have problems such as poor framerates and bad textures. It should be noted that the aforementioned consoles are already discontinued.
- Sadly, the voice acting somehow ranges from decent to annoying, in a similar way to the English dub of the Cars mockbuster film The Little Cars in the Great Race, unlike the film this game is based on (with only four said exceptions; see below). How this happened was because of due to the game actor strike of October 2016-September 2017. Because of this, only Darrell Waltrip (Darrell Cartrip) and Junior Johnson (Junior Moon) reprised their roles from the movie.
- In addition, the characters also never shut up during gameplay. Sally, in particular, has the worst voice actors out of all, and some characters, an example being Bobby Swift, sound absolutely nothing like they did in the film.
- To make the matters even worse, the characters' voice lines constantly repeat all over again.
- In addition, the characters also never shut up during gameplay. Sally, in particular, has the worst voice actors out of all, and some characters, an example being Bobby Swift, sound absolutely nothing like they did in the film.
- Lots and lots of grinding, which was never even explained in the instruction manual (see above).
- Most of the game modes were ripped directly from the previous game, with some exceptions such as the addition of Stunt Showdown.
- Long loading times.
- While it's nice to see free roaming return as the Thomasville Playground, the map is very small compared to the map from the previous Cars games.
- Continuity error: Doc Hudson is shown to be still alive at the very beginning of the game, despite it taking place after the events of the film. Wasn't he supposed to stay dead?
- However, the reason is that the first mission is considered more of a flashback.
- Unlike Cars 2: The Video Game and most other Cars games, Guido does not speak, so his voice actor, Guido Quaroni, is uncredited.
- Just like Cars 2: The Video Game, there is still no speedometer, which is unacceptable for a racing game released by modern-day standards or console games. The same example is followed by Fast & Furious Crossroads, where there is no speedometer and mini-map twice simultaneously, an even lower-quality game released in 2020 by Bandai Namco Entertainment.
- On that topic, both games were overpriced, even Fast & Furious: Showdown (despite having a speedometer and mini map).
- The game's HUD is even almost a copy of the HUD from Cars 2: The Video Game.
- There's even no PC release, although most of the previous Cars games had one for this treatment in the past.
- Much like the previously said F&F-based games, it was over $60 at launch too.
- Also, there's no new DLC or updates.
Driven to Won Qualities
- The graphics are pretty good.
- The tutorial does a solid job at teaching the player how to play the game.
- If you think you can do better in the game, it's possible to train in the Thomasville Playground, a free-roaming area where you can practice, your driving skills and stunt skills.
- The controls, driving, and handling model are well done.
- The Stunt Showdown game mode is cool and fun.
- If you don't like (or hate) them, or are tired of them, at least there's surprisingly thankfully an option that does allow you to mute the voice actors and just only leave the subtitles enabled on if you want (most will).
- Looking back to DtLQ#10, the game has at least been released on consoles prevalent to its release date.
- Some voice actors are decent at their roles or do decent impressions of the cast from the movie, like A.J. Hamilton as Jackson Storm, or also Adam Burton as Mater (even though he still got nothing on Larry the Cable Guy).
- As said before in DtLQ #11, at least Darrell Waltrip and Junior Johnson did reprise their roles from the movie, and their performances are still very good.
- Multiplayer here is still decent despite the lack of online play.
- It does at least have some effort put into it unlike most licensed games despite the blatant rehashed gameplay mechanics.
- The game runs well.
- The ability to honk (and even change) your horn, and also change each characters' flame color seems kind of very interesting.
- Seeing tracks from the previous game is quite interesting too.
- Jackson Storm actually gets his comeuppance.
- The idea of bringing back free roaming was nice, even if it's just not large enough or a normal road (as mentioned above).
Reception
The game received mixed reception among critics; however, Cars fans are much harsher towards it, declaring it to be one of the worst games, if not the absolute worst, in the entire Cars franchise.
Videos
Trailers
Behind the Scenes
Reviews
Trivia
- Despite Doc Hudson's death being followed by Paul Newman in 2008, this is his latest appearance of him being shown alive as seen in the first cutscene (although he has no lines).
- This is the only Cars video game not to have a handheld, Wii, nor PC version. This is most likely because the PS Vita (because of not enough room to support the game) and 3DS (because of some commercial failures) were dying out of popularity.
- At some point in one stage, a dark green flatbed truck reuses Smokey's model.
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