In all honesty, Pimp My Ride probably wouldn't have turned out so bad if the locale, Pimp City, wasn't so boring and restricted. Every building is indiscernible from the others with the exception of the handful of "key" places you are forced to visit, which include the music shop, car garage, and the next unsuspecting, unfortunate visitor that the virtual folks over at Pimp My Ride will be paying a visit to. Based on your progress in the game, the title even restricts you from traveling anywhere else in the city, forcing you to occasionally bump into the ever annoying invisible barrier. Note to game developers: if I see some terrain off into the distance, I'd like to be able to go over there. Exploration is an important aspect in a game like this, and it's quite obvious that the creators of this mess didn't know what to do with it. The game doesn't even feature licensed vehicles, which would have been a huge improvement, but then what's the point when there aren't even any racing elements. Hey, I've got a fantastic idea for a new video game. Let's call it "Pimp My Game," where the main emphasis is improving abysmally awful titles into works of art.

Sadly, what isn't art are Pimp My Ride's visuals, which look like a direct port of the PlayStation 2 version. Collision detection is poor, and there aren't even impact effects after you crash into an unsuspecting pedestrian. To make matters worse, the game occasionally locks up, which of course forced me to reset the console. Given the time they had to work on this particular version of their game, it is surprising that there are still some technical defects with it.

Probably the one nod that one could give to Pimp My Ride is its musical tracks, which aren't half bad. The only detriment with the audio is that there isn't much variety, and the same song will loop continuously every time you give each mini-game a go. If you really want to fully take advantage of what they were going for, I'm sure that Xzibit has a few downloadable tracks on his web page - subliminal advertising for the win.

Best Moments From E3 2013

Top 10 Amazing Trailers From E3 2013

Sony Hoodwinked Everyone

Xbox One: Gameflix

Top 10 Weapons of Massive Awesomeness

Shooters Are Killing Creativity

PR Rules The Next-Gen Race, And The PS4 Is On Top

CheatCC Original - The Games of June

Top 10 Defining Moments of the Current Gen

Why I'm Buying Xbox One and Why You (Probably) Shouldn't

Consoles Are Cursed

The Wii U is the Next Generation's Martyr

More Special Features...

Looking at the big picture, the primary issue with Pimp My Ride on the Wii is that it wasn't built from the ground up on it. For those who have their hands deep in the pockets of the gaming realm, it was common knowledge that Pimp My Ride came out on the PlayStation2, PSP, and the Xbox360 back in 2006 and 2007, along the way getting negative reviews and even some "worst game of the year" awards from an assortment of publications. Thus, it probably wasn't the brightest idea to port this over to the Wii. Not only have no changes been made to the gameplay since its release nearly two years ago, but the newly reformatted control scheme just feels unnecessary. Controlling your clunker with the Wii-mote feels overly loose and unresponsive and any other use for the controller just involves shaking the Wii-mote up and down throughout the title's tediously boring mini-games. You can paint a piece of charcoal with gold paint but that doesn't mean that it's gold. All in all, just wait for Grand Theft Auto IV if you really want a game where you can "pimp your ride." It's unfortunate, but I'll probably never look at the television show the same way again; I wonder what else is on.

By Branden Barrett
CCC Freelance Writer