Disney Pixar Cars is a racing game sprinkled liberally with mini-games to help give off the fun loving feel of the hit movie.

Graphics are okay. Though they aren't at Pixar's production value, they get the job done. Each character is easily recognizable and features many, if not all, of the same graphical cues (stickers, color schemes, body styles, etc.) of their big-screen counterparts, so kids won't have a problem picking out their favorite vehicle. Unfortunately, where the graphics fell a little short was with the occasional low frame rate during a race with several other vehicles. This didn't happen too often, but it was frequent enough to make me take notice.

As for Cars' sound, as you would expect, the game sports many of the vocal talents from the movie. Once again, you get to hear Larry the Cable Guy as Mater, the old, rusted-out tow truck, Bonnie Hunt as Sally and Cheech as Ramone. The game also has the same, if not similar, soundtrack of the movie, thus helping to make it feel just a bit more authentic.

Disney Pixar Cars brings you back to Radiator Springs after the events of the movie. Lightning McQueen has established his headquarters at the little dusty town and the one-light city is hustling and bustling with a life it hasn't seen since the Interstate was laid down.

When I first saw the commercials for this movie, I had just finished reviewing an Atlus "carPG" called ChoroQ. My immediate thought when the preview started was that someone was making a ChoroQ movie. Obviously this wasn't the case. Then I started thinking about the game that was sure to follow this new movie and thought it would probably follow a similar formula to the above mentioned game. But alas, even though there are a few similar elements -- any resemblance to the cute, car-racing-RPG is very high-level and superficial.

Cars's Story modes feature a semi-open-world environment where you can drive around Radiator Springs and talk to residents and visitors. You will be asked to sign autographs, run errands and, of course, take part in races. The game has two Story modes, a quick overview game geared to wards younger kids with short attention spans and a longer story for those of us who want a little more detail.

As mentioned above, Cars is filled with mini-games that are unlocked as you progress through the story. These games let you relive many of the memorable scenes from the film like going tractor-tipping, chasing speeders or harassing other cars on the highway as the tricked-out pranksters from the movie.

The Road Races mode lets you go through more than 20 races on the dirt and back roads of Radiator Springs, while the game's VS mode lets you and a friend race against each other.

Not all the action takes place in Radiator Springs. In Piston Cup mode, you can control Lightning as he takes to the circuit in an attempt to put Chick Hicks to shame once and for all. All of the races (Piston or otherwise) and mini-games that you've unlocked are available at any time through the game's Arcade mode.

Disney Pixar Cars has its tough parts, but in general, the races and mini-games aren't all too difficult. Every now and then I found myself redoing some challenge a couple of times, but by no means did it ever get to the point where I was frustrated.

The average player can breeze through this game in a weekend, but that's when you grab a friend or sibling and go through all of the unlocked events together. Though the races are easy against the A.I., I found that playing against a real live human made things a bit more interesting.

Disney Pixar Cars's control scheme follows just about every other racing game to hit the PS2. X and Square are gas and brake respectively, while Circle is your emergency brake. The Triangle button will cycle you through the various preset camera angles, while you steer with the left stick. You can also use the left stick to jump if you quickly move it down, then up.

As you progress in the game and unlock more skills, you will be able to do things like power slides and boosting (R1 and R2) as well as driving backwards (double tapping the Circle, then holding down the X). Like I said, except for a couple of details, the control scheme is fairly standard and easy to pick up.

Cars is a game that is definitely directed towards the younger gear-heads that have seen the movie and can't get enough tractor-tipping.