Nicktoons Racing

SeventhSentinel commented:

My favorite game when I was 6 years old. While it doesn't hold up as well as I remember (at least vs. Mario Kart Wii) it's still good fun.

For many years after we got rid of the old Win2K machine I ran this on, I found the game never looked quite right. However, I recently installed Pac-Man: Adventures in Time, and many visual artifacts have disappeared (though a couple new minor ones have shown up). The game runs just fine under Windows 7, and even supports high resolution display, though you'll have to do a quick hex edit to the config file for that. I was VERY excited to see the display is not stretched improperly in 16:9 resolutions. XInput controllers are supported, too, though you'll want to run JoyToKey in the background as some functions cannot be bound to the controller. As far as I can tell, the controller only works for player 1, so if you find someone to play with you'll DEFINITELY need JoyToKey running.

As for the game itself, you're looking at 3 cups of four tracks to race through, plus 2 bonus maps that are not for racing. After you get the gold trophy on each cup, you will unlock a higher difficulty. You can also do single races, relay races, and time trials. Relays are just single races where you compete against one opponent and switch characters each lap. You get a good variety of characters to choose from, but they all seem to handle identically, so just pick your favorites.

The race tracks are themed after the shows the playable characters come from. They are pleasing to look at and mostly well designed, though you may find yourself getting caught on pieces of geometry at times. Almost all of them contain shortcuts, but there is no drivable terrain that can slow your character, so there is nothing stopping you from taking these shortcuts at any time.

The item system is okay. The gift boxes on the tracks will give you mostly offensive items. (If you get the cardboard box, aim it carefully, as when it lands on certain surfaces it does absolutely nothing.) For extra speed, you'll need to pick up the blue and pink gems (called speedburst) along the track or drive over boost pads. I suggest keeping one or two bars of speedburst handy for quick recovery in case you are hit by an opponent's weapon or run over slime.

I find the music quite enjoyable, though you probably won't get the bulk of it stuck in your head -- no real bangers here. Its quality is pretty good since it is stored as 32KHz PCM. The sound effects are also pretty good quality, including the voice clips assigned to each character which I believe are all taken straight from the TV shows.

Overall, Nicktoons Racing is a pretty good game in my opinion. While the gameplay isn't quite perfect, there is still plenty of fun to be had racing and battling on good-looking tracks while listening to pleasing music. Any '90s kid should be able to get at least a few hours of fun out of it.

I'd like to close by recommending the Windows version over the PS1 and GBA versions. On modern hardware, the Windows version completely blows the PS1 out of the water graphically. The PS1 version also seems way too hard compared to Windows, plus I don't think it supports analog sticks. The GBA version is definitely worth playing, but as you might expect, it's almost a completely different game.

I hope someone out there finds this helpful. If you did, and you can spare a dollar or two, please consider searching for me on ko-fi.com.

Oh yeah, and whoever runs this site: feel free to take this comment and use it as the new description for the game. I only sat down and typed this because no real description was there. Feel free to edit it as needed, but please attribute it to me. Thanks.