This time, I know how to play.

For the 2nd game in my childhood block, I played Cars: Race-O-Rama. When I was younger, I played a shit load of DS games. Hell I even still have most of them in my possession. You play as the Lightning McQueen himself as you race against Chick Hicks who want to take you out of business.

Of course I didn't let that happen. But first... I had to face my greatest enemy... the tutorial stage. I fondly remember struggling with the tutorial. Despite having controls plastered in my face. I think I just didn't fully understand how to jump on ramps or something and I would just constantly fail the stage where I had to jump over the cones. Didn't struggle this time. I owned that tutorial stage.

After that, the real races began. Radiator Springs 1 was the first stage. A nightly stroll in a city desert. Ironically as the first real race I played, I bumped into barriers a lot and hung around the back of the line for a while. But being that I was just a little faster than these Hicks, I caught up and made my way to first place. and won the race. Now in each track there are these wrenches you can collect to unlock stuff. I wasn't focused on the wrenches in this stage but I still managed to collect 1.

Ornament Valley 1 was next. Which was... another desert stage. Funnily enough... it had no Ornaments. This time I did want to see how many wrenches I could collect and carefully looked for any secrets and whatnot. Though I feel silly for passing on obvious secrets that I just skipped past. Thankfully it was a multi lap race so I would be able to go back and get my prize. I stayed in first for basically the whole race and collected 3 wrenches. Where the other 3 were... I had no idea.

Next up, Santa Carburera 1. Had a more resort vibe to it. I ended up restarting a few times because I felt like I wasn't finding the wrenches. And one of them was tricky to collect. You literally had to do a trick jump off of a rock to get it. Needless to say... I didn't get it. I just focused on finishing the race and being contempt with my 3 wrenches I got.

Tailfin Pass 1 was the next stage. And... uh... more desert... more sand... more... going the very wrong way. Seemed like the developers of this game were very obsessed with desert stages. Oh but this one had tornados in it! That didn't really look threatening at all! Because I still easily won because McQueen is freaking fast!

Next up was a 1 on 1 against Candice. A bratty little female car who thinks she can have everything her way. No wrenches to collect in this stage. Just focusing on the track itself... which was... very confusing. Sometimes you have no damn clue which way to turn and you end up crashing and going the wrong way and everything is terrible. Especially in this one tunnel area where it looked like there were 2 walls ahead but they were these weird ass ramps. They seemed very pointless being there and I ended up falling behind.

But just like the previous races, McQueen is always just a little faster. And I ended up catching up with Candice and took the lead again and won the race! Of course Candice was pissed and called to her daddy for upgrades. Emphasis on... bratty. The last stage I played for the night was Motoropolis 1. Which ended up being rather confusing. Because there was this one wrench that seemed to be just out of reach. No matter what I tried to do or tried to go, it seemed like that wrench wasn't collectable. I restarted several times thinking I missed a turn but... I just couldn't find anywhere else I could go.

I then went backwards, sacrificing the race and suddenly somehow found myself in that area with the ramps and wrenches. But when I tried restarting and doing the race again, I couldn't find that area. How how was that possible? It turns out... this whole time I had been taking a different path. At one point in the race, there's a fork and you can choose to go left and straight or right and up. I went right and up every time, not thinking about the left and straight path which led to the ramps and wrenches. Towards the end of the race, I jumped off one more ramp to collect another wrench. But I lost my control and ended up crashing into the railing. And of course you reverse slower than a fucking turtle so the other cars caught up and beat me.

So I had to restart. Thankfully you don't have to recollect the wrenches you got after finishing the race so I went back to the right and up path to collect that other wrench. Oh... when I first played this track during this stream, I thought that wrench on the up right path was a blockade and drove right past it. Oops. Back where we were... after I restarted after finishing the race in 2nd, I finished in first this time. And got to end the stream a happy little racecar.

Hey... did you know racecar backwards is racecar?