Walt Disney World Quest:

Magical Racing Tour

A Techtite Review

Too frustrating for little kids; too little nostalgia for grown-ups. What was Eidos & Disney Interactive thinking?

Given how the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises are used endlessly for game concepts, it's pretty peculiar how few "3D"/polygon graphics games are based on Disney parks. How cool would it be to have a Super Mario type of game, jumping, sliding, and exploring throughout a Disney theme park? How cool would it be in an adventure game, to be able to explore a virtual reality version of the Haunted Mansion, room by room, or to help the Dwarves save Snow White? Well, somewhere, someone thought it was cool to race through Disney World rides, instead. What's the rush?

The game premise is simple; Chip and Dale have tried to put acorns into the Disney World fireworks machine, and broken it. The pieces shot clear across the whole park, and you must find them before the park closes. While this would be a cool premise for a Super-Mario type game (or Banjo-Kazooie, or even Bugs Bunny: Lost in Time!), the premise is made into a racing game instead. You can only get the pieces of the fireworks machine, after winning a race in each area. Did I miss something here in the plotline: the pieces are not lost, and can only be "given back" by winning several...races?

Oh well; far be it from me to gripe about video game plotlines. I will, however, gripe about how few actual Disney characters are in this game: Chip, Dale, Jiminy Cricket, and that's it. Additional characters seem totally made up, for no reason other than that you need five opponents per race, and the game designers apparently only had permission to use the above 3. For that matter, the option to play as Jiminy Cricket will not open up until you complete the entire game! If you're not a fan of the cartoon Chip & Dale's Rescue Rangers, you'll be disappointed at the lack of characters.

You'll be disappointed in environments, too. The game starts in a Thunder Mountain race track (which doesn't look like that ride at all, aside from the same color dirt), then Animal Kingdom's "Dinosaur" ride, then Blizzard Beach. You must complete these so-so tracks before reaching the tracks based on more popular Disney World rides, like the Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, and Pirates of the Caribbean (shown here). Each track has the bittersweet addition of a "short cut," which you must search for while AI opponents know exactly where it is. How frustrating, for little kids!

Even as a racing game, the experience is not as "magical" as it could be. AI controlled competition too easily gets power ups that are nearly impossible for you to get. While such power ups are intriguing --while in last place, you can curse all racers into frogs for a few seconds, then dart to first place!-- they are also quite annoying, when they happen to you, endlessly. Which power-up you receive at any location is chosen at random, yet this random element seems less favorable to the human player, than that of the AI players. While an AI opponent lucks out and finds the aforementioned super-powered frog curse with ease, secret power ups for you are often mere 3 second speed bursts. No fair!

Granted, some of the 3D environments are intriguing. Fans of the Haunted Mansion ride, for example, will enjoy the background music of the ride's classic theme song, "Grim Grinning Ghosts,"  as well as salutes to that ride's best sites of interest. Likewise for the Pirate ride, EPCOT's "Test Track," and others. In the Tomorrowland Track, the background has all the sights you'd normally see --like the castle and the Contemporary Resort Hotel in the distance-- plus a Giant Mickey Air Balloon floating along...cool! However, to enjoy these environments, you have to slow down...and to slow down means losing the race. Did I mention enough times how odd it was to make this game a race?

I really wanted to like Magical Racing Tour. Heck, I was sure I'd love it, given my love for the park it's based on. It may, indeed, be quite appreciated by the hardcore racing game fans. They probably won't mind trying again and again and again, for very little reward other than a "you won!" sound byte (in case you were wondering: once the fireworks machine is fixed, the fireworks finale is quite disappointing). What should have been a more enjoyable, interactive 3D cartoon romp (a la Super Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie), is instead quite frustrating. Parents be forewarned; this games difficulty level is bound to bring smaller kids to a tantrum, or even tears. Even for this adult Disney-fan, after being zapped from first to last place with a "magic acorn," over and over and over...well, as the Pirates of the Caribbean would put it, "Arrrrrgh!"

	Final Rating : Near Miss. Too hard for kids; adults will wonder where half their favorite Disney characters are. Racing through Disney World is, also, not very fun.
For more on this site's ratings system, click here.

 To order Dreamcast version, Click Here

To Order Playstation Version, Click Here