Overview
Cars 2 is a racing game developed by Salt Lake City-based Avalanche Software. The game features characters from both the first and second Cars films. The game story takes place at the end of the second film where Lightning McQueen and friends become part of an international spy agency called C.H.R.O.M.E.
The game is a mix of racing and vehicular combat, including lap and time based racing modes and open arena battle modes. Like in other racing games, your goal is to make it to the finish line - however players can pickup items that modify their car with a variety of weapons including missiles, machine guns and satellite EMP blasts.
The title also features four player split screen multiplayer. Up to two players can simultaneously participate in the story mode as well.
Development
Cars 2 was created by Salt Lake City based Avalanche Software, a Disney owned internal development studio. Prior to their work on Cars 2, the team at Avalanche Software was responsible for the Toy Story 3 video game, which earned a "Family Game of the year" award from Kotaku, and a BAFTA nomination for "Best Family Game" of 2010.
The game went into production in early 2009 and was released in June of 2011. As with the Toy Story 3 video game, Avalanche Software continued their strong working relationship with Pixar Animation Studios to get the characters, animations, voices and environments of the game feeling 'on brand' with the quality fans expect of Pixar-based properties.
Single Player Race Types
- Standard Race - Ten cars go around a track, best time wins The tracks are all based on locations from the movie, though not all (such as an oil rig and an airport) were used as race areas in the movie. Each track has shortcuts, some of which require boosting or jumping to access.
- Battle Race - Same as a standard race, except with specific weapon power-ups. Weapons are picked up by driving through lit icons on the track, similar to Blur.
- Survival Challenge - Only two cars. Your car has constantly diminishing shields, which must be kept up by collecting batteries/charges. Each level has one type of power-up weapon, and the car you chase can be targeted for extra points.
- Hunter Challenge - Smaller timed levels. These use arenas modeled on the race track locations, but are set up as small, self contained free roam areas. Each challenge consists of 5, 2:00 minute waves. Enemy cars spawn in at the start of each wave, and the player uses weapon power-ups scattered through the level to destroy these cars; any remaining cars a the end of each wave simply disappear.
Multiplayer
Console multiplayer is 4-player local, and can be played in teams or everyone for themselves.
Playable Characters
The following characters were included in all versions of the game...
| Lightning McQueen |  |
| Francesco Bernoulli |  |
| Nigel Gearsley |  |
| Carla Veloso | |
| Jeff Gorvette | |
| Shu Todoroki | |
| Miguel Camino | |
| Max Schnell | |
| Raoul CaRoule | |
| Mater | |
| Miles Axelrod | |
| Chuki | |
| Daisu Tsashimi | |
| Finn McMissile | |
| Holley Shiftwell | |
| Luigi | |
| Guido | |
| Sarge | |
| Fillmore | |
| Professor Z | |
| Acer | |
| Grem | |
| Tomber | |
Xbox 360 Avatar Awards
On the Xbox 360 the game supports Avatar Awards and features 3 racing suits for players avatars earned by unlocking specific achievements within the game.
| Avatar Award | Requirement to Unlock | Image |
|---|
| Team Brazil Jumpsuit | Unlocked by obtaining the "In Your Face" achievement. | |
| Team Spain Jumpsuit | Unlocked by obtaining the "Smashing" achievement. | |
| Team France Jumpsuit | Unlocked by obtaining the "Island Hopper" achievement. | |
System Requirements
Minimum:
- OS: Windows® 7 / XP SP3 / Vista
- Processor: 3.0 GHz Intel Pentium 4 class / AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (or equivalent)
- Memory: 1 GB of RAM
- Hard Disk Space: 3 GB
- Graphics Card: 256 MB NVIDIA FX6600 / ATI Radeon X800 (or higher)
- Sound Card: DirectX 9 Compatible
- DirectX: 9
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