Chevrolet Camaro Wild Ride 3D review

Could've spent more time in the garage

Review written by
daveoneal

April 30th, 2014

The Chevrolet Camaro: one of the most recognized and longest-lasting pony-cars next to its most well-known competitor, the Ford Mustang. If you're an American, and don't live in a cave, odds are that you've ridden in one of these cars or have been passed by a few-thousand on the interstate.

The cars are generally quick, stylish, and fun to drive - so why not make a video game about it? It's not exactly a terrible premise for a racing game: Get in the Camaro, hit the highway in the U.S.A. and parts of "Europe" and "Africa" (because U.S.A. is a country and therefore so are the continents of Europe and Africa), and try to land in the first place.

First of all, there are a few minor potential points of confusion I would like to clear up. In the U.S., the game is referred to as "Race to The Line". I'm not sure if it still called Chevrolet Camaro Wild Ride 3D in Europe and other territories, and I'm not sure why the change occurred. My guess is that the license between the developer and publisher expired with G.M. aka Chevrolet, and the developers were forced to remove the Chevy "bowtie" badge. While playing the game, I noticed that every car looked like a Camaro, but was missing the trademark Chevy symbol and had a generic name to represent whichever vehicle I was driving.

With that out of the way, let's get to the game itself. First of all, the gameplay is pretty basic. It's not an all-out battle-royale slug-fest like Mario Kart, and it's not a hyper-realistic racer like Forza Motorsport. You won't find a blue shell coming up behind you before you cross the finish line, nor will you have to corner and brake perfectly with the mind of a military strategist to get to first place. I would compare it more to some of the 90's Sega arcade racers or early PSOne racers like Test Drive 5.

All in all, it's not boring, nor is it overtly exiting. There is a learning curve when it comes to cornering and passing other cars. The game will seem quite difficult at first, but once you get the hang of it, you will be leaving your other computer-controlled characters in the dust.

Speaking of the opponents, the A.I. humored me quite a bit. Not only do the opponent vehicles swerve to the left and right erratically to try and block you during passing, the early losers will actually give up and form a barricade if the race has more than one lap. It shows the cheapness of the game, and while funny, the lack of polish becomes evident when the A.I. acts like a human trolling online.

There's another downside to the game that I will go ahead and address: the music. It sounds like Joe Satriani or another instrumental guitarist. It's not bad for the first fifteen minutes. Bass, drums, and a few sweet-sounding guitars hammering it down; but after a while, this gets really grating. There are only about three tracks through the whole game, and they begin to sound quite dull after a few plays.

Graphically, the game isn't at a complete loss, especially for one that costs four U.S. dollars and 2.89 Euros. The environments don't repeat themselves and look well-done. The 3D effect works well, and my only real gripes are that the backgrounds do not always "draw" immediately, sometimes showing an empty white space far away that detracts from the immersion that video games are expected to provide.

Another plus is that there is a competition mode. I had no other 3DS players around to test this, but apparently you can compete with up to five other players simultaneously. There's also a time attack for those who want to hit the pavement solo. The tracks are also long and rarely repeat laps, making the game much longer than the 8-track amount (16 counting reverse) appears.

For the price, it's not a bad game - but they could've made it better. They could've added some much-needed variety in the gameplay, like jumps and/or collision damages. Having a variety of musical styles suiting the highway, such as trance, classic rock, or hip-hop could've enhanced the feel of the game. An online competition mode would be sweet, pushing the game from mediocre to rather good; but, if you are looking for a cheap and moderately entertaining racing title (or just really like Camaros), then look no further. If money isn't an issue so much, then there are plenty of better racing games out on the 3DS.