MicroMachines V3 is truly a forgotton gem of retro gaming. It was the first game in the MicroMachines series to feature 3D graphics in an already successful video game series and it were as though somebody opened the floodgates of awesome driving games.
Devloper: Codemasters, Novalicious
Genre: Racing
Release date: March 1997 (PS1), 1998 (PC), Aarch/April 1999 (Nintendo 64 port)
Platforms: PlayStation, Windows and Nintendo 64
ESRB: E - Everyone
The game was later re-ported for its Nintendo 64 debut, albeit under a different name because Sega likes to look original and from that point on lots of successful, similar style racing games came out including.. Super Mario Karts, woo. So, the MicroMachines series is a racing game featuring toy cars on somewhat unusual courses that are typically places around the house and garden, since you’re driving miniature vehicles everything is oversized so you feel a little like a teenage Borrower skidding about on somebody’s kitchen table. Overall the game is extremely memorable and comes with bags of personality and nostalgia for those who grew up in the 90s.
Gameplay
There is no real skill required in playing this game and in that sense it’s very simple to play. Saying that, this is a really funny and enjoyable party game and the more people you get involved the more fun you’ll find it. You can pick which vehicle you want to race out of a pretty wide selection including ice cream trucks, offload trucks, racing cars or big rigs and then race them across crazy, oversized courses that take place in various mundane settings like on a school desk or on the breakfast table. These places are mundane in theory but agonizingly dangerous when you’re essentially a matchbox on wheels as the courses often take you over perilous bridges made out of rulers and baguettes or through deep trenches of sticky honey. To make things more interesting some of the courses are on the surface of a pond meaning you get to race in speed boats rather than ground vehicles which is great if you want to change things up a bit.
But it’s not just the environment that’s there to slow you down; your opponents too have the ability to send you hurtling off the table top to your demise. The game a good amount of healthy competition as you can pick up plenty of weapons and power ups to help you win the race. If you like you can pick up a mallet power up that will quite literally stick an enormous car-smashing hammer onto the front of your vehicle, there’s something greatly amusing about chasing your friends around the course and beating them to a plastic pulp. So, the game doesn’t just have a mallet to pick up but your standard power ups too like turbo boost and force fields, that stop your friends from beating you into plastic pulp, there’s also some particularly destructive items like explosive mines and dynamite that can ricochet off solid bits of scenery and hit you slap bang in the face if you’re not careful.
Graphics and race tracks
Even though the graphics of this game are dated now the levels are still looking undeniably great. The race tracks of the game are split between various themes such as the breakfast table, in the garden, on the surface of a pond and on a snooker table with each theme having thoughtful little design features. Sticky honey that will slow you right down and milk that will send you skidding off the table to your death are really quaint features of the breakfast table level and it’s great how even the borders of the track change with each area. Whilst the breakfast table has chocolate cereal outlining where you’re supposed to stay the pond has little drops of algae and the wine stained cloth of the restaurant table has peas and carrots instead. It’s all very cute and very charming with great little touches like a snail retreating into its shell when you bump into it and giant frogs and dogs to the side of the track.
My only criticism of the levels of this game is that they can quickly become repetitive as many tracks are rehashes of the same few themes which results in the cuteness and personality of your surroundings wearing off, leaving you feeling a little bored due to the unchallenging gameplay. Despite this, there are 48 different courses and they have varying difficulty levels like beginner and master. You can also attempt the time trials and challenges that they game sets you or you can try your hand at a tournament which is great fun with lots of friends, all in all there’s a lot packed into this game so you can get quite a few hours out of it by trying to complete everything.
Conclusion
MicroMachines can wear on you a little if you’re playing by yourself as most of the fun comes from the competiveness of racing with your friends rather than beating the AI. Despite this, it’s a fun racing game with lots of playability and some great features that can be easily overlooked. The menu system and tutorial are fun and quirky and give the game a feel good factor that you don’t often get with driving games and the different driving modes like time trials and tournaments add in a much needed variation to the standard winding around a memorized track. The camera angles are a little dodgy but tolerable and quite common in late 90s games. The fact that this game is a PlayStation childhood staple means it is worthy of having a few modern day flaws here and there and overall it’s still a fun, eccentric miniature car racing game that will get everyone involved.
The Good:
The Score – 7/10
If you're playing this game maybe you want to check out the PS1 cheats and debug mode codes for MicroMachines V3, find them here.
Devloper: Codemasters, Novalicious
Genre: Racing
Release date: March 1997 (PS1), 1998 (PC), Aarch/April 1999 (Nintendo 64 port)
Platforms: PlayStation, Windows and Nintendo 64
ESRB: E - Everyone
The game was later re-ported for its Nintendo 64 debut, albeit under a different name because Sega likes to look original and from that point on lots of successful, similar style racing games came out including.. Super Mario Karts, woo. So, the MicroMachines series is a racing game featuring toy cars on somewhat unusual courses that are typically places around the house and garden, since you’re driving miniature vehicles everything is oversized so you feel a little like a teenage Borrower skidding about on somebody’s kitchen table. Overall the game is extremely memorable and comes with bags of personality and nostalgia for those who grew up in the 90s.
Gameplay
There is no real skill required in playing this game and in that sense it’s very simple to play. Saying that, this is a really funny and enjoyable party game and the more people you get involved the more fun you’ll find it. You can pick which vehicle you want to race out of a pretty wide selection including ice cream trucks, offload trucks, racing cars or big rigs and then race them across crazy, oversized courses that take place in various mundane settings like on a school desk or on the breakfast table. These places are mundane in theory but agonizingly dangerous when you’re essentially a matchbox on wheels as the courses often take you over perilous bridges made out of rulers and baguettes or through deep trenches of sticky honey. To make things more interesting some of the courses are on the surface of a pond meaning you get to race in speed boats rather than ground vehicles which is great if you want to change things up a bit.
 |
| The diners must be pretty immature to line their vegetables up like this. |
But it’s not just the environment that’s there to slow you down; your opponents too have the ability to send you hurtling off the table top to your demise. The game a good amount of healthy competition as you can pick up plenty of weapons and power ups to help you win the race. If you like you can pick up a mallet power up that will quite literally stick an enormous car-smashing hammer onto the front of your vehicle, there’s something greatly amusing about chasing your friends around the course and beating them to a plastic pulp. So, the game doesn’t just have a mallet to pick up but your standard power ups too like turbo boost and force fields, that stop your friends from beating you into plastic pulp, there’s also some particularly destructive items like explosive mines and dynamite that can ricochet off solid bits of scenery and hit you slap bang in the face if you’re not careful.
 |
| I imagine this is how pond-skippers settle their differences. |
The gameplay is generally fun but only if you’re playing against human opponents due to the excessively simple AI of the computer opponents. A fairly frustrating element of the game is that if you fall too far behind the other cars you just automatically respawn close to the others and this can take away a lot of the challenge and, especially when playing against friends, can take away a lot of the competitiveness. There’s no split screen feature, which may be why the cars respawn rather than fall back, but on the Nintendo 64 port you can have up to 8 people playing using pad-share which greatly enhances this game’s status as a party game.
Graphics and race tracks
Even though the graphics of this game are dated now the levels are still looking undeniably great. The race tracks of the game are split between various themes such as the breakfast table, in the garden, on the surface of a pond and on a snooker table with each theme having thoughtful little design features. Sticky honey that will slow you right down and milk that will send you skidding off the table to your death are really quaint features of the breakfast table level and it’s great how even the borders of the track change with each area. Whilst the breakfast table has chocolate cereal outlining where you’re supposed to stay the pond has little drops of algae and the wine stained cloth of the restaurant table has peas and carrots instead. It’s all very cute and very charming with great little touches like a snail retreating into its shell when you bump into it and giant frogs and dogs to the side of the track.
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| That's either an extremely tiny note or the scaling is way off. |
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| I'm not sure if that's supposed to be cheese or extremely round butter. And why is that bread miniture? |
Conclusion
MicroMachines can wear on you a little if you’re playing by yourself as most of the fun comes from the competiveness of racing with your friends rather than beating the AI. Despite this, it’s a fun racing game with lots of playability and some great features that can be easily overlooked. The menu system and tutorial are fun and quirky and give the game a feel good factor that you don’t often get with driving games and the different driving modes like time trials and tournaments add in a much needed variation to the standard winding around a memorized track. The camera angles are a little dodgy but tolerable and quite common in late 90s games. The fact that this game is a PlayStation childhood staple means it is worthy of having a few modern day flaws here and there and overall it’s still a fun, eccentric miniature car racing game that will get everyone involved.
The Good:
- It's always fun being this tiny
- Fast paced, competitive racing
- Quirky and original
- Nice looking maps, very detailed
- Decent variety of vehicles including boats
- A good party game with lots of people
- Fun 'beat em up' power-ups
- Despite lots of courses, maps feel repetitive
- A little grating after a while
- Boring on your own
- Camera can be rather temperamental
The Score – 7/10
If you're playing this game maybe you want to check out the PS1 cheats and debug mode codes for MicroMachines V3, find them here.
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