Dreamworks All-Star Kart Racing Review

thesixthaxis.com:

I imagine that somewhere out there, there’s a battle royale for game developers, each team fighting tooth and nail to acquire the best licenses on which to base a game. Amongst the sand and the blood, you’d have to imagine that Dreamworks Animation would be one of the most prestigious licenses out there, teams climbing on top of their fallen compatriots to reach it. But, as you stand there clasping your prize you realise that there’s too many options. What exactly do you do with the Dreamworks license? Seemingly, the answer is to make a kart game.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with making a kart game, and at its heart, there’s nothing wrong with Dreamworks All-Star Kart Racing. Once you’ve got over the variable quality of the soundalike voice artists, you’ll find a game that’s packed with largely recognisable animated stars like Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon, Mr Wolf from the recent Bad Guys, and that loveable green ogre, Shrek. They look, and sound, close enough that any undiscerning child will likely not notice, and it feels like that’s the market right there.

There’s initially a good batch of racers to choose from, and you unlock more by completing the different cups on offer. They’re all from Dreamworks’ biggest franchises though, so anyone hoping for a Prince of Egypt or El Dorado cameo will be left sorely disappointed. That said, one of the highlights of the game has to be arriving at each of the themed tracks and seeing places like Berk, Shrek’s swamp or Far Far Away appear in all their glory. They not only look good, they’re fun to race around too.

The racing has borrowed liberally from Mario Kart, from the speed boosts and tricks when you launch off a ramp to holding the jump button to drift around a corner,