Are the Bad Days Over? Wacky Racers and Looney Tunes Reviewed

In 2004, Warner Brothers Interactive Vice President, Jason
Hall, set forth a new initiative that would alter the fee game publishers pay.
Tired of publishers using Warner Bros. characters to push inferior products,
Hall decided to punish publishers who received an aggregate review score of
less than 70%.  “The game industry
has had its time to exploit movie studios all day long and to get away with producing
inferior products,” stated Hall. “But, with Warner Brothers, no more.
Those days are over. And we mean it. This isn’t just lip service. Honestly, the
bad games are over.”

Recently, two DS titles were released that contain two
Warner properties: Wacky Racers: Crash and Dash, and Looney Tunes: Cartoon
Conductor. Today, we examine those two titles to see if Hall is a man of his
word.

Wacky Racers is based on a forty-year old Hanna Barbera
property in which eleven teams would compete in a road race. WB brought the
seventeen episode series out on DVD in 2004, which rekindled memories of Dick
Dastardly, Muttley, Penelope Pitstop, and the Slag Brothers for some. Even with
A.M showings on cable channel Boomerang, we doubt these characters strike a
chord with the game’s target demographic.

Forgoing the typically Mario Kart control mechanic, Wacky
Racers uses the stylus to control the player’s vehicle. Vehicular mayhem is initialed
by picking up sprocket icons, and then triggered with the D-pad, or the button
for left-handed players. While this control method is novel, it does produce
one significant problem- the screen becomes obscured by the players own hand
about half the time.

Laps and crashes are broken up by minigames; players may use
the stylus to avoid upcoming attacks, or to reassemble their vehicle after an
AI attack. During the final stretch of each racer, player must blow into the DS
microphone to maintain their speed; making this title awkward for the morning
commute.

For a game that seems to strive for a tween demographic, Wacky
Racers is surprisingly difficulty. While playing at the easier of the games two
difficultly levels, we seldom finished in the top spot.

Final Grade: C

As a game, Looney Tunes: Cartoon Conductor fares significantly
better. Clearly drawing inspiration from Osu! Tatakae! Quendan/Elite Beat
Agents, players tap and slide the stylus in directed synchronization to the
music. Any gamer whose played EBA will immediately recognize the play mechanic;
Looney Tunes’ one distinction is that not every ‘beat’ must be tapped out,
instead the player slides the stylus between notes much more frequently.

LT:CC skips the pop refrains of EBA, instead focusing on the
classical pieces found in a number of WB cartoons. The top DS screen is used to
provide a visual narrative to the onscreen action, and uses polygons instead of
2D drawings to advance the plot along. The game contains eighteen songs of
decent quality, which should be enough variety for most games.

Final Grade: B

After examining these two titles, we have to give credit to
Hall, although somewhat marginally. While both titles should garner at least a
70% Gamerankings score, and are better than most of the WB properties of the
past, they aren’t top quality games that will win over audiences based on gameplay
alone.