It’s not really worth bothering with, though. Cars is a strange title that attempts to mix free roaming “open world” gameplay with more traditional racing events. Now I can see how younger gamers might enjoy exploring the setting of the movie but, unless you’re really trying to collect every last item in the game, there doesn’t seem much point in straying far from the main roads. All the “open world” did for me was make the task of trying to navigate to the next event marker even longer and more frustrating.

There’s also some bizarre difficulty spikes, that surely would stop most younger gamers in their tracks, and some overlong circuit racing sections so it’s not a title that I’d recommend. It’s a shame really because the recreation of the characters from the film is well done and there are some mildly humorous cut scenes. I’ve probably been spoiled by Burnout Paradise.

The remaining Gamerscore came from Rock Band (where I’ve finished the guitar solo tour on medium,  vocal tour on easy and the drums also on easy), Virtua Tennis 3 and Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 1. I’ll probably try and get a review post up on the Penny Arcade game later.

Most of the points came from Virtua Tennis 3. As I mentioned before, I’ve really been enjoying playing this game. Sports titles aren’t a genre I usually stick with but the learning curve in Virtua Tennis is set just right. Getting a win feels challenging but always achievable. At no time do you feel that you’ve been completely trounced by the computer. I was very pleased to reach #1 rank in the world tour mode during the past week.

I’ve finished off as much as I’m going to do of Beautiful Katamari and Iron Man. Neither title turned out to be very good value but they filled a couple of gaming hours.

I quickly revisited Guitar Hero III as well last week. I’d downloaded the Muse track pack, to get some practise in before Rock Band arrives, and was really pleased when I unlocked an achievement especially as my overall score is still very low in this game. In typical Guitar Hero III style the achievement was only worth a miserly 5 points! I hope the GH: Aerosmith ones are a little easier to get. From what I’ve seen on the Internet, they don’t look quite as bad.

The last game on my list was Cars. Yeah, I know it’s a bit kiddy but my one year old likes seeing the characters on the screen and it’s nice to have a game that I can play when she’s around. I’m really finding the game world awkward to navigate, though, and it’s a pretty frustrating experience all round. Although the achievements come pretty easily I don’t know if I’ll continue playing this title. You’d think a game aimed at the younger market would have a more streamlined control scheme and just be a little more fun.