What We Liked

Marty, Gloria, Melman and more. We really liked that the Madagascar characters were faithfully represented both graphically and vocally. Some movie tie-ins have really bad voice impersonations in them, but this delivers the true sound of the characters. And the characters behave much like they do in the film, which made them really connect with kids immediately. King Julian is up to his usual antics which keep the kids laughing while the penguins and monkeys add to the mayhem as well. There are also two “bonus” characters that your kids are sure to love: B.O.B. from Monsters vs. Aliens and the ever-loveable Shrek! The nice thing is that even though you have to earn the ability to drive with either of these guys, you get to see B.O.B. and Shrek racing against you right from the first race. And if that’s not enough for you, you can unlock tracks that go through Shrek’s Swamp and the world from Monsters vs. Aliens. If your kids like the characters from Dreamworks’ films, they’ll love this one!

Ease of Play for Little Gamers. Madagascar Kartz offers different kartz to race that vary by speed. You start the game driving a 50cc kart that is slower and easier to handle. As you win races, you unlock 100cc, 150 cc, and 200cc kartz which all increase in speed and handling. The nice thing is that you can race in any speed kart that you like and race against others in the same kind/speed of kart. That means you don’t need to race in the faster kartz to drive on the advanced tracks.  This makes it easy for little ones to race in the slower, easier 50cc kart throughout the game and enjoy everything that their older friends do!

Good controls. Madagascar Kartz for the Wii is available in one of two formats, one bundled with a cool green steering wheel and one without. The game can played with any Wii steering wheel accessory which is really the best way to play it. But, you can also use the Wii remote with a nunchuk or the Wii remote alone. Either way, the controls for the game are very good and simple to use. Doing tricks during the race is as easy as pushing one of the direction buttons on the Wii remote, which again, makes it easy for little ones to enjoy the game and perform all of the “tricks” without much difficulty.

Great multi-player support. So many games with mutli-player split screens do a bad job of keeping the separate screens clean and easy to see.  That’s not the case here.  The split screens are very easy to use and the frame rate (how fast the animation moves) never skips or slows down like so many other games.  This makes it really enjoyable for the whole family to play together.

Lots of tracks. There are 21 different tracks to race on and that seemed pretty good to us. The tracks are rendered very well graphically and offer a great variety of landscapes to race through. My favorite is Shark Beach which features a giant shark that chases the racers. Good track variety combined with excellent multi-player racing modes definitely increases the lasting appeal of Madagascar Kartz. We’ll be playing this one for a while!

What We Didn’t Like

I Hit What? Although the idea of hitting boxes to gain power ups and weapons was fun at first, it got a little annoying after a while. Especially when you are the victim of someone else’s weapons. Except for Chimpsplosives and Flaming Coconuts (which you can easily see on the road ahead of you), you have no warning or chance to avoid weapons that others use against you. So, you could driving along happily and then be flipped upside down without any warning because someone blew the Horn of Maurice! It certainly makes the game zany and funny, but it could be distracting or annoying at times.

Do you like to move, move it? I hope so because, as you might have expected, you’ll be hearing that song…a lot! The kids probably won’t mind so much, but after a while the soundtrack wears a bit thin.

Good for the Kiddos

Madagascar Kartz is rated E for Everyone with Comic Mischief. The ESRB rating of Comic Mischief is based on the fact that players can occasionally pick up bananas, bee hives, or “disco bombs” to throw at opponents, causing them to flip in the air or spin out. Other than the “comic mischief” there is nothing in Madagascar Kartz that is offensive or suggestive. There is no foul language, although at one point you can hear Marty the Zebra quote one of his lines from the movie “Oh Sugar Honey Iced Tea!” which if you look at the first letters of the words sugar, honey, iced, and tea…well, you know what it spells.  Also, if you didn’t like Shrek’s gaseous emissions in the movie, you won’t like them here either.  Shrek’s “special” power is a cloud of green gas that is emitted from tailpipe.

As for educational value in the game, you’d be hard pressed to find any. But, like we’ve said before, not every game your child plays has to have an educational component. This game is fun to play, easy to play for kids of all ages, and best of all, you can play it with the family…together. The multiplayer mode really allows the whole family to get involved and have a fun, whacky night of go-kart racing in your living room.

Golden Egg Rating

We give Madagascar Kartz 4.5 out of 5 Golden Eggs. This is a solid, fun, and entertaining family game from Dreamworks/Activision that promises to keep you racing karts for quite some time. The appealing characters from the movie, the engaging game play and kid oriented graphics will make this a pleaser for the younger crowd for sure. The “weapons” used in the game can be a bit annoying and make the game play slightly frustrating at times but, overall, this is a good kart racing game for everyone in the family.

Slideshow and Screenshots

Check out the lightbox slideshow below for images of the new game Madagascar Kartz. Simply click on a thumbnail to start the slideshow. Details and information for each screenshot are located at the bottom of the image in the slideshow. Images courtesy of Activision.