'So close to video game goodness but lets the gold slip away'. That's a very accurate description of Butt Ugly Martians: Zoom or Doom by the good folks at Crave. Based on a 3-D cartoon of the same name, sans the Zoom or Doom, BUM:ZOD is a racing game with nice in-game visuals and exceptional pre-rendered cut-scenes. It could have been great, but it feels like the game was released just before it was 'actually' finished.

The graphic quality of BUM:ZOD isn't up to snuff with current multi-million dollar PS2 game projects like Silent Hill 3, but if you consider the fact that this game has a price tag of 20 dollars, the graphics are certainly more than acceptable. The tracks themselves are very appealing and look like a lot of fun to race on, as they are. Also, all of the HUD information is clear and the layout is excellent.

What's really nice is the quality of the pre-rendered cut-scenes. Fans of the show (wherever they are, I couldn't find one person who had ever heard of it) will no doubt enjoy the clips since they appear to be like something straight out of the cartoon itself. A lot of the visuals in the game are a little 'big' (especially many of the menu graphics), but since this is a game which is obviously geared toward a younger audience, that's to be expected.

There's really not too much to say about the audio aspects of the game except that it's exactly what one would expect from a Saturday morning cartoon. The music and sound effects are simple but 'bouncy'. It's clear that the voice actors are the same ones from the cartoon itself. So that's either bad or good, depending on how you feel about how characters from Saturday morning cartoons sound.

This is pretty standard Mario Kartesque gameplay. You choose a character and during the race, you can pick up various weapons and other assorted goodies and use them to push your way towards first place. You have your standard play modes, Tournament, Practice, Time Trial, and Two-player versions of these. Did I mention you can choose a character? What I forgot to mention was that there doesn't seem to be any discernable difference between the characters, aside from the way they look. Each one races exactly the same way. This isn't entirely catastrophic as different characters will give you a different story during Tournament mode. This isn't quite as fabulous as it sounds however, as each character doesn't have their own story - they share, so there actually ends up being only about three stories. Why have so many characters if they are all the same?

Speaking of story, I guess I should let you know what's going on with these terribly ugly Martians (personally they all look an awful lot like the rest of them to me). It seems these three Martians, with cringe-worthy names like Doo Wah Diddy, were sent to Earth to take over. Like so many small alien teams sent to take over earth throughout cartoon history, they started to find our planet comfy. So the Martians get jobs on a kid's show and send up the episodes as 'footage' of their invasion to Emperor Bog to keep him off their back. Pretty cushy deal. Well ol' Bog has gotten tired of waiting, so he's instituted a race. The winner gets the job of taking over the Earth. With governmental prowess like that, there's no wonder this guy can't even invade Earth right.

Not exactly the most challenging racing game to come along, Butt-Ugly Martians: Zoom or Doom will only offer a challenge to very young players. It does however have a few things that make it a pain in the rear. The most notable of these is the game's poor controls. After recently spending a few minutes with the tight controls of the newly released F-Zero GX, I found it hard to come back to a game where you have to hold a button all the way during a turn and will still slam into the tracks' rails.

In fact, you'll spend most of the game on the outside rail because there just doesn't seem to be 'any' way to make a tight turn in this game. Yes, the game has the typical 'power slide' buttons on L1 and R1, but it just isn't enough. Since the powerups are often clumped on one side of the screen, it seems you are supposed to be riding the rails. While it's true that dragging across the edge of the track doesn't really slow you down, it's still very irritating. It's almost like when someone holds their finger in front of your face and says 'I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you'. The game slams you against the side of the track and goes 'it's not really slowing you down, it's not really slowing you down'. True, but that doesn't make it okay or any less annoying.

Another small problem with the game is the severe load times. Maybe it wasn't actually longer than most games; maybe it was just because they plastered this gigantic, jumpy, unsmooth load bar onto the screen. Naw, it had to have been longer than usual. At the end of the day it's the same effect. I'm sitting here feeling really edgy because of the time it takes to load.

While it appears like I've focused on the negative, it's only because the good stuff about Butt Ugly Martians: Zoom or Doom is all pretty standard stuff. However, instead of that little bit extra it would have taken to be really fun, it seems Crave decided to leave in all the rough edges.