Herbie Rescue Rally is a racing game sprinkled with a small connecting story. If you are expecting to play the movie, Herbie Fully Loaded, this isn't it. The only character really in common between the two is Herbie. Young Louise Noble has taken a job at the Swift Valley Speedway, though she promises her parents she'll still help out with the animals at the family Animal Sanctuary in the evenings. What she doesn't yet know is that the E. Vile Corporation is planning to buy the land out from under her family and turn the area into a sewage dump. Oh no! Can Louise and Herbie defeat Edward Vile at the Cross State Grand Prix and save the family homestead? That's up to you.

Off to the Race
At least in the section I'm in, each new part of the game begins with a lot of back and forth conversation screens between Louise and Jackson, another employee at the Speedway. He introduces Louise to Herbie and takes her on a series of after-hours street races on increasingly difficult tracks. Louise has to finish above a certain position on each race in order to progress to the next. If she doesn't win, she has to start over that race.

This means going through all of the conversation cut screens again. There's no way to skip them and there's about ten screens to tap through each time.

In the race, you control Herbie's direction with the Control Pad. The A button has to be held down at all times for forward acceleration. My right hand is actually getting sore from the strain by the third race if I don't take breaks - and each race is only about 2 to 3 minutes long. You'll use the B button to brake, or reverse if you hold it down. Apparently you can use the X button to honk your horn or use power ups and the Y button changes the camera view.

You won't know any of this unless you read the manual.

The tutorial, such as it is, doesn't cover such plebian nonsense as how to drive the car or access special abilities.

What it will tell you is to click the R button to do a power slide turn. After a few races, it will tell you to tap the two flowers rapidly on the touch screen to increase your Herbie bonus. Of course you've probably seen the Herbie bonus prior to actually getting instructions and will have no idea what to do with it.

You'll steer Herbie over little '53' signs to earn Herbie bonus. You learn this by trial and error. Once you've filled your bonus meter, a launch pad will appear. Steer Herbie onto the launch pad and the DS takes over; doing wild tricks in the air that will land Herbie in first place. No, you don't get to do the cool tricks. That's the DS's job. There are other little floating signs or tires you can steer into. These will earn you one power up. If you've read your manual, or you just mash every button, you'll find out that you can hit X to access that power up.

Nuts and Bolts
You will get three Profiles in Herbie. Essentially these are save game slots. Once you've picked a new or existing profile, you can decide how you want to play. Story Mode is where you need to start. This unlocks races for the other modes (Quick Race, Tournament and Multiplayer), and bonus items such as horn tones, power-ups and multiplayer vehicles.

You do have an Options screen, and you can set the level of difficulty to Easy, Medium or Hard. I will admit that I found the controls difficult even in Easy mode. I admit that I don't have the best manual dexterity in the world, but this is a game for kids. Easy mode should be, well, easy.

Tournament mode will let you race against DS controlled cars on increasingly difficult tracks. You have to get 1st or 2nd place in all of the Speedway races to unlock the Tournament races. I can't tell you what the Tournament races look like because I haven't beaten all of the Speedway races at this point - I've been playing for three weeks.

Quick Race is a nice option allowing you to pick which track you want to race on, but you can only pick a track that you've already unlocked in Story or Tournament play. Within your Quick Race, you can pick Normal Race which is all 4 cars in a regular race. Boost Race is just you trying to set the best time. Against the Clock gives you a set amount of time to finish your race. You actually drive over virtual clocks as you go around the track to gain extra time. The Head-to-Head race is you against one other car for the gold.

Side Note: Having to unlock stuff is kind of a pet peeve of mine. If I buy a game, I want to direct my play time. If I want to race on track 7, let me race on track 7. I hate being locked out of content.

Multiplayer mode will let you race up to three friends on any track you've unlocked in Story mode. Each friend will have to have their own copy of Herbie Rescue Rally in order to play. From what I can tell, the person hosting the race controls which tracks will be available for the race.

Finish Line
Herbie Rescue Rally is really supposed to be a kids' game. There is an awful lot of reading between the cut screens for the story and the operating instructions in the manual for a younger child to get through. Even in Easy mode, I had a difficult time controlling the car and getting around the track. My dexterity isn't that great - I freely admit it - but Easy mode should mean something. When I run into barriers or other cars, or other cars run into me, I have a heck of a time getting unstuck from them. I also think the back of the box is a bit misleading. It says, "Race up walls, loop-the-loop and wheelie your way to first place!" All of the really 'out there' moves I've seen so far have been done by the game when it takes over control of Herbie when you earn your Herbie bonus. I have seen something that lets you do a wheelie, true, but nothing to let me race up walls or loop-the-loop.

If you explain the controls to your child before they start, and just have them tap through the dialogue screens, and their manual dexterity is reasonably good, they will probably have fun racing Herbie around the track. Just make sure your little one isn't expecting to play the movie.