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Kawasaki Quad Bikes Review for the Nintendo Wii

Kawasaki Quad Bikes Review for the Nintendo Wii

Still Too Expensive

Companies creating video games to advertise their products is nothing new. Throughout gaming history, there have been many advertisement centric games created and released to the unsuspecting public. One of the most recent examples of this were the trio of titles that Burger King made available for the Xbox 360 for five dollars with the purchase of a meal. Even though the games were not fantastic, they were at least somewhat entertaining, fairly cheap, and came with the food you were already purchasing. Kawasaki Quad Bikes is also somewhat cheap, coming in at a twenty dollar price tag instead of the standard forty or fifty dollars for most new Wii titles. Unfortunately though, this game doesn’t come with a meal and it is also relatively unplayable.

Kawasaki Quad Bikes screenshot

Quad Bikes suffers from two main flaws that will completely ruin any kind of enjoyment that could be derived from this budget title. The first, and perhaps worst, flaw this game has come in its camera. While playing, you are only given two options for how to view the game. You will be able to choose from either a third-person or a first-person perspective. The third-person view is almost completely unusable on most of this game’s tracks. This perspective has the camera placed extremely low and pulled very closely to your bike, perhaps to give everyone a better view of the fine Kawasaki brand quad bikes that the game just so happens to be advertising. While this view may make for a better commercial, it makes playing the game a nightmare. Because of the terrible placement of the camera, you will be unable to see many of the game’s turns, obstacles, and even opponents.

The game’s first-person view fairs slightly better, at least allowing you to see what is happening in front of your vehicle. The only major downfall of this perspective occurs when you jump off of a ramp, bunny hop or come into contact with an opponent. Basically, if any of those things transpire, you will be treated to a pretty useless view of either the dirt or sky. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really seem to matter which perspective you choose, the end result of either is usually the loss of your lunch (perhaps this is why it doesn’t come with food).

Kawasaki Quad Bikes screenshot

Those queasy feelings are only made worse by the games other major flaw: its controls. As with almost every other racing title on the Wii at this point, Quad Bikes has you steering your vehicle by tilting the Wii-mote left and right as though it was a steering wheel. While this may seem like a natural fit, the steering is extremely loose and uncontrollable most of the time. When making turns, the game will often ignore the severity of your tilting, leaving you either over or under steering quite frequently. While you are attempting to regain control, you will also inevitably come into contact with opponents. When this occurs, you might as well just let go of the controller. Almost every time you hit an opponent you will either get spun completely around or end up lying on your side until the game sees fit to let you race again. I had several occasions where my quad bike was lying on its side for a good seven seconds or more before I was allowed to race again. I can’t stress enough just how imprecise these steering mechanics are and how much they detract from the gameplay.

While struggling to regain control of your vehicle, which is how most of this game is spent, you will also need to use a bunny hop move quite often. As if the tilting controls weren’t bad enough by themselves, the bunny hop maneuver can only be performed by shaking the Wii-mote up and down once its meter has been filled. This further spells doom for anyone trying to somehow maintain control around the game’s many twists and turns while jumping over the plethora of obstacles that litter most of the tracks. Kawasaki Quad Bikes ends up just being another title in the growing pile of Wii games that could have honestly played better if the developer had just ignored the Wii-mote’s motion-sensing capabilities and used standard analog stick and button based controls. They didn’t make this game more intuitive or entertaining, just more frustrating and uncontrollable.

Kawasaki Quad Bikes screenshot

Surprisingly, as far as content goes, you do get a lot of game for your dollar with this title if you can somehow stomach the gameplay. Quad Bikes includes single race, challenge, time trial, extreme, and mirror modes. Challenge mode will have you taking on eight races in a row, earning points that are added to your total based on how you finish. To complete the challenge modes, you will need to finish with the most points among all of the racers. The time trial mode is fairly bizarre. Instead of trying to beat a specific time or having any kind of objective, all you do in this mode is choose a track and keep racing around it until you grow tired of it.

Kawasaki Quad Bikes screenshot

The game will keep track of your fastest and current laps while you are racing, but all of your times will disappear once you leave the race. Mirror mode is fairly self-explanatory, allowing you to race the game’s tracks in reverse. Extreme mode is really anything but extreme since it is basically just like normal racing but with more ramps and obstacles in the way, forcing you use the game’s horrible bunny hop move way more than should be allowed by law.

Kawasaki Quad Bikes also offers a very basic multiplayer option for up to two players to compete against one another. Although it may not be an incredibly robust or entertaining option, it is nice to see it included even in a budget title. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to find one person brave enough to suffer through even a lap of this vomit inducing interactive commercial, let alone two. While the Wii is widely known for encouraging friends and family to come together and play as a group, this title seems only to encourage everyone within visual range to leave the room.

While the old adage “you get what you pay for” initially seems appropriate for this title, even at twenty dollars, I really don’t think that you are getting your money’s worth. There could be a somewhat enjoyable gameplay experience hidden somewhere in this title, but you won’t be able to find it underneath all of its horrible camera and control flaws. I honestly can’t recommend this game to anyone, even a gamer on a budget. There are just too many other racing games available on the Wii, such as Excite Truck, that you could get for virtually the same price and have much more fun with. Basically, if you have twenty dollars and really want to pick up a game, you should either look elsewhere or just save your money.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 2.5 Graphics
While there is nothing incredibly impressive here, at least the game doesn’t look as bad as it plays. 1.5 Control
The motion controls in Quad Bikes only serve to make the game incredibly frustrating and uncontrollable. 2.2 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
This game is host to some very poor and repetitive music, sound effects, and voice work. 2.0

Play Value
There is a decent amount of gaming for your dollar in this title; you just won’t be able to stand its horrible flaws long enough to uncover it.

2.0 Overall Rating – Poor
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Game Features:

  • A full range of officially licensed Kawasaki Quad Bikes, with unlockable extras, hidden quads, upgrades, courses, and much more.
  • Kawasaki Quad Bikes features the most exhilarating off road tracks known to man! This is a chance to experience the heart stopping power and agility of these awesome Kawasaki machines.
  • Outstanding single player game modes include numerous championship and single race challenges, with over 70 track variations.
  • Multiplayer mode allows you to compete against friends, with lots of challenging environments to explore, from gravel covered slopes to mud soaked arenas.

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