N-Philes

Herbie: Fully Loaded

Posted by Steven K..

The day started off like any other. I was standing around the office, chatting it up with all the other N-Philers. Then I jokingly asked if they would post a review of Herbie: Fully Loaded if I wrote one. Wouldn't you know it, a few days later it arrived in my mailbox. I was obviously the only one daring enough to take on such a challenge. But, as Yoda would say, "Up to it, I am."

If you're anything like me, when you think of racing games, the first ones that come to mind are the greats: Beetle Adventure Racing, Mario Kart, and Carmageddon (if you're into that kind of thing...) just to name a few. Herbie: Fully Loaded isn't quite as good as the greats, and if you keep reading, you'll find out why.

When you first start up Herbie, you see four items in the main menu to choose from: Story Mode, Free Race, Championship, and Options. However, the only real "options" available are if you want the music or sound effects on or off. Free Race lets you play any one track on easy, hard, or extreme difficulty, once you've completed them in Story Mode.

As one would expect, Story Mode is the meat of the game. You only play Story Mode on easy difficulty so it should be no problem for most people. You start on track one (Downtown Race) and play all the way through to the eighth and final track (Amusement Park). Each race consists of three laps, with four other racers all trying to get that coveted 1st place victory. And if you don't get all first places, Herbie goes to the junkyard where he belongs. All the while, you're trying to avoid the dreaded oil slick spots along the track, while collecting power-ups to get ahead of your rivals and earn the lead. Before and after each race, you are treated to a still from the movie with a witty or congratulatory caption.

There's a total of four power-ups in the game. They are scattered throughout the tracks, and you just plow Herbie right into one to collect it. They consist of four differently-colored stars. There's a red star that lets you shoot a tire at your opponents, a blue star that makes Herbie do a wheelie and get a speed boost, a yellow star which turns Herbie around like a jackass (and gives him a speed boost), and finally a green star, which makes Herbie jump in the air and also get a speed boost.

Once you've blown through Story Mode, which I happened to do in a whopping 21 minutes, you could move on to Championship, but there's really no point. You play through the same eight tracks, with the option of upping the difficulty. But the only thing more difficult is the number of laps you have to endure, and more twists, turns, and oil spots. The better you place in the races, the more points you get at the end. Get the most points by the end of the all the races, and you get an end screen that says "Contgratulations! You won! Game over."

Graphically the game looks pretty decent. There are backgrounds for the various levels consisting of mountains, cities, and of course the amusement park. Buildings and trees are along the sides of the tracks. And the other racers don't look too bad, either.

This game gets an N-Philes score of D.

Herbie: Fully Loaded is a subpar racing game. I had a somewhat fun time blazing through Story Mode, but with a lack of tracks, no real reason to play the other modes, and the fact that you'll get bored of it in less than an hour, it's hard to recommend this game.

Posted in: Reviews

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