Parents' Guide to Trailblazers

When it comes to racing games, it can be hard to find something that genuinely feels original, but this racer feels like a classic with a new can of paint. Actually,Trailblazers does something completely different with that paint ... mainly by letting players spill it out all over the track. The result is a team-based experience that's fast and fun, with a little more thought involved than just putting the pedal to the metal. The painting mechanic opens up all kinds of unique team strategies. Players can use the speed-boosted paint trails to slingshot around one another, giving an opportunity to trade places and keep their team's accelerated racing going. Or one player can hang back and keep painting over the opposing team's work, keeping them from earning a boost streak. In 3v3 matches, there are even more ways to combine these and other strategies, making winning a race feel like a genuine team effort.

Trailblazers is also a great-looking game. It's got a colorful, cartoonish style with a retro sci-fi design. It has sharp details and runs smoothly even when you're flying down the track at breakneck speed. As good as it looks, though, the rest of the presentation is a bit lacking. The single-player story mode gets players used to the different tracks with certain goals to accomplish, but ultimately, it feels like an extended tutorial or watered-down challenge mode. Players have certain objectives to reach in each race, but these are mainly practice for the competitive races. While the dialogue is full of cheesy one-liners, these do little to flesh out the drivers' personalities. Mind you, just the addition of a Story mode is more than most arcade racers offer, and it doesn't detract from the overall fun. In fact, even with the Story mode's flaws,Trailblazers winds up having plenty of horsepower to pass a lot of the competition and take the checkered flag.