Wacky Races

aka: Les Fous Du Volant présentent Satanas et Diabolo, Wacky Races Starring Dastardly and Muttley, Wacky Races starring Fred Fiesling und Teufelszahn, Wacky Races: Le Nuove Avventure di Dick Dastardly & Muttley
Moby ID: 3488
Dreamcast Specs
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Official Description (Ad Blurb)

Start your engines!

The wackiest, wildest cartoon racing game ever is here. Based on the original Hanna-Barbera cartoon, Wacky Races lets you join your favorite characters on a wild race where only your wits, your driving skills and your bag of dirty tricks will get you across the finish line first!

-11 wacky characters to play including Penelope Pitstop, Dick Dastardly & Muttley, and the Slag Brothers

-Each vehicle has its own special gadgets and unique abilities

-Race across 22 tracks filled with jumps, shortcuts, tunnels, and traps

-Foil your adversaries with foul tactics and diabolical schemes

-Select from multiple racing modes - Track Challenge, Wacky Cup, Dastardly Time Trials, Vs., Golden Muttley Challenge, and more!

Source: Back of Jewel Case - Dreamcast (US)

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Credits (Dreamcast version)

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Acting / Voiceovers
Developed By
  • Infogrames Studios Ltd. Sheffield House
Studio Manager
Producer
Designer
Lead Programmer
Physics/Gadgets Programmer
AI Programmer
Game Logic Programmer
Vehicle Modelling
Character Animation/Modelling
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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 73% (based on 22 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 16 ratings with 3 reviews)

This is the reason I bought a Dreamcast.

The Good
I love this game. While it's not the best racing game with the best graphics or the best sound, it is certainly the most fun. If you remember and love the old Wacky Races cartoon show, you'll love this game. While only one of the original voice talents was able to return the new team does an outstanding job of mimicking some of the greatest voice actors ever (Don Messick, Daws Butler, and the great Mel Blanc). The cel shaded graphics make it feel very much like a cartoon. All the cars are represented although you'll have to win a few races before you can use some of them. Their weapons and defenses are hysterically funny at times and the races are plenty challenging. I can't say enough about how fun this game is. If you like the cartoon, buy it!

The Bad
The Golden Mutley Challenges are a little too difficult and must be completed before you can enter the easier and infinitely more fun battle mode.

The Bottom Line
Similar to a kart racing game. It's the next best thing to watching the show.

Dreamcast · by Courtland Funke (53) · 2001

This is some pretty neat stuff right here.

The Good
Years ago, my father brought home a Wacky Races game for the PC. I used to watch the cartoon as a child so I thought it'd be cool to have a game for it. When I tried it however, I found it to be almost unplayable: Very bugged, and just not fun. It was a complete disappointment. So when my parents bought me a Playstation 2 one of the first games I had for it was this one. At first I thought "Oh no not a PS2 port of that lame computer game". Fortunately I was wrong, as this has nothing to do with the computer game. In fact, AFAIK this version of the game is pretty much the same as the Dreamcast version.

In this game you can revive the old Wacky Races. You can play as all the characters of the cartoon. Each character has its own set of advantages/attacks and becomes more powerful once you finish the Adventure mode. There are many types of battles here. From the traditional race (composed of laps, with the exception of very few maps), from special Deathmatch maps where your objective is to take out your adversaries instead of winning a race. There are also other kind of gamemodes, such as the "Gold Muttley" challenge or the Dick Dastaldly challenge.

All the maps are well done and it is especially fun to play them with friends. In a way this game reminds me of Crash Team Racing as the gameplay mechanics are pretty similar (There are weapons here as well). As I already mentioned the game supports up to 4 players races/battles which manage to be much more fun than playing against the AI which at times may become boring (even though it's pretty well done).

All characters are unique and well balanced. Three of them have to be unlocked by finishing the Adventure mode though. They often say things when they're winning/losing/attacking/getting hit, mostly resembling those said in the cartoon series. And this is a good touch to an already entertaining game.

The Bad
Well this isn't the best game ever made for sure but I can't think of any major flaws. It's just a fun, light-hearted car combat game.

The Bottom Line
So in the end, there is really nothing wrong with this game. I especially suggest it to those who like the cartoon and those who are looking for a game similar to Crash Team Racing. It's well worth your money.

PlayStation 2 · by CKeen The Great (160) · 2011

An underrated gem -- in my top 3 Funnest, Most Playable DC Games

The Good
1. Everything about this game puts you directly in the cartoon, from the sounds to the characters to the weapons to the karts. This was a kart-racer designed for both cartoon fans and video karting fans. (Hence, I found it enjoyable on both counts.)

2a. The token system, wherein the use of a weapon is dictated by how many tokens you have and how many tokens each weapon costs to use, is a really neat way of making the game more fun. In many karters, the weapons are randomized--you run into a box or over a panel and wait to see what the CPU sticks you with. In Wacky Races, so long as you collect tokens from around the track, you can use whatever you like. If you like Penelope's hair dryer boost and nothing else, you can use that boost all the time and ignore everything else. This makes it fun for people who are more into the cartoon than the video game--they can play along to collect tokens and spend 'em on the weapons that give the biggest weapons.

2b. The other cool feature about the token system is that the tokens are recycled: when you use a weapon and spend tokens, instead of those tokens disappearing, your spent tokens are tossed back onto the track. The token system is cool all around, and I'm really surprised it hasn't caught on in other karting series.

  1. I know this ties in with #1, but the attention to detail in the maps, karts, weapons, and characters is so freakin' cool. It's fun just to replay races and listen to the SFX.

  2. Arkansas Chugga-Bug

  3. Muttley's laugh.

    The Bad
    1. The previous reviewer's comment about the difficulty is warranted. The game asks a lot of the player to unlock features that probably should have been available from the get-go. One of the "Boss Races" to beat Dastardly is damn-near impossible--it took me a full three hours of attempts to beat him one night, and as somebody who really enjoys karters and has gotten good at them, I was effin' PO'ed. So the game can be ridiculously frustrating in brief, very limited moments.

  4. 1 being said (which will make this point sound silly), after a few go-rounds with the game, I found it to be pretty easy. The "speed" of the game isn't too taxing--it's got more of a put-put feel than it does nitrous-oxide feel. While I think the speed should be exactly the way it is to preserve the cartoon feel, the slower speed does make the game easier for people with video karting experience. Plus, with the AI being non-rubber bandish, you can get way out front and stay there once you get the hang of the game. This cuts back on the single player replay value.

  5. This point is the cold side to the hot side from what I liked about the token system: if you happen to get way out front, one of the drawbacks of the token system is that it leaves GOBS of spent tokens on the track for the kart way in front. The pack spends them beating up on each other, and when you've got a half-lap lead and come back to their battlefield, you can fill up on tokens and burst to increase your lead. It's not fair, really.

4a. The announcer got old. I turned him off pretty early into the game. This is a lame criticism, as you can turn him off. Just pointing it out.

4b. Either needs more tracks or needs the existing tracks to be more variable. Again, this is a minor complaint, though more valid than #4a.

The Bottom Line
Some people make the mistake of treating this a novelty karter that is only interesting to fans of Wacky Races. The truth is that this game pulls off quite a feat: it manages to interest cartoon/Wacky Races fans in video karting, and it entertains karters by completely immersing them in Wacky Races. So long as you like cartoons or like karters, you will dig this game.

I played the hell out of it, and I had lots of other supposed DC classics to waste my gaming time on. Wacky Races was in my top 3 most played games along with Jet Grind Radio and Power Stone 2. Despite my gripes about the relative ease of karting in this game, I just couldn't stop going back to it because, like JGR and PS2, it's unadulterated FUN.

Dreamcast · by MagFram (33) · 2005

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Kartanym.

PlayStation 2 added by Brian Taylor. Dreamcast added by Courtland Funke.

Additional contributors: Jeanne, jimjamjo, Hipolito Pichardo.

Game added February 19, 2020. Last modified March 27, 2023.