This game is a weak follow-up to a game that did a fantastic job at translating its source material into a video game.

First off, the gameplay. In terms of raw content, Mater-National has less races than the first (Cars' 19 road races and 5 piston cups vs. Mater-National's 20 unique races). This game has more minigames, though they're all pretty uninteresting, and some of the events even re-use tracks.
The driving is also much floatier in comparison. Jumping, tilting, powersliding, and normal turning all feel a little worse for it. The PC version also doesn't have proper analog support, so turning feels worse than it needs to and jumping is extremely sensitive on a controller.

Mater-National has basically no story, even in comparison to the first. The first Cars game gave you a nemesis (Chick Hicks), a goal (the Piston Cup), a good sense of progression, and contextualized every event bar one with a unique cutscene vetted by Pixar. By comparison, Mater-National doesn't really have a villain, it barely has a goal, it progresses much slower, and the only context is a couple races that introduce the new characters. Those new characters are overall less interesting than the first, and the few cutscenes and even the Pixar characters feel dumbed down in their writing and jokes.
This game also doesn't feature the original voice cast for the movie characters, which hurts what I believe is one of these games' strongest appeals, which is the ability to immerse yourself in Radiator Springs.

Speaking of Radiator Springs, Mater-National's overworld has been majorly downgraded. Radiator Springs had half the map cut away (including Willy's Butte, the canyon, and the forest), Ornament Valley also had its own canyon section removed and replaced with an airport, and Tailfin Pass removed every route leading to the top with the Wheel Well Motel, including the mine, being replaced with a cave placed somewhere completely different. Most of these areas are locked off, only to be used in races, which makes the whole open world feel less like a town that's lived in and more like a vehicle for the races to take place in. The great soundtrack that's half pulled from the first game also only plays over event makers, which makes these areas feel emptier than they already are.

While Mater-National is functionally more compatible with modern PCs than Cars, the PC version is a worse experience versus its consoles versions than Cars. It doesn't support custom resolutions, widescreen, analog input, it barely supports windowed mode, your graphics settings are stored in your save file, you can't type save file names or cheats with the keyboard like in Cars, and the game can sometimes crash after the race countdown ends. And while not necessarily a PC exclusive feature, this game removed the jukebox system from the first game that let you pick what songs you wanted to hear and when.

In conclusion, Mater-National is a downgrade from the original Cars video game in nearly every way; a worse-controlling racing game with less interesting new content, more reused content, less original ideas, a boring story and characters, an overall inferior way to experience Radiator Springs and the Cars universe, much less polish, all wrapped up in a worse PC port. If you were impressed by the way the original game captured the feeling of the movie, do not play this game. If you only thought the original game was okay and wondered if the sequel improved on it, do not play this game. If you've already exhausted most other avenues of Cars content, only then would I recommend this game.

I was looking forward to this game, wanting to play it simply for the fact that Sally is my favorite character and I cannot stop gooning to her. Unfortunately, after 100%ing this game and unlocking everything, I was very upset and depressed to find out that Sally was nowhere to be found in the ENTIRE game. Thanks Rainbow Studios and THQ, now I am 9 hours in edging debt.

So I decided to finally make a review of this game, and I can already say that this game is not even good. At all.

How Come Rainbow Studios, the one's that made the First game of Cars. Made this game into a heavily downgraded.

Everything about it is so bad that I can't bring myself into playing this game anymore, i'm gonna say why in my opinion.

The "Story" if you could call it that, is almost completely non existence. There ain't any special about it, The only thing about is there are different racers coming from all over the world, which there are 4 new racers that are from different countries. And that's really about it, it doesn't really do much throughout the story as you will just see them. And they're gone. At least there Cars: TVG Story had an interesting one which takes place after the film one year later. Which there Is an villain there & other stuff, but this one is just... none at all.
And the pacing in Story Mode is so slow, not because of the game. But because of McQueen, He feels so slow that he could barely even reach 180 MPH as he usually goes about 150 MPH, hell not even the boost could do that. The acceleration on him is bad enough already.
If you play as any characters (besides Doc because he has almost the same problem as McQueen) they feel a lot faster.
Even when you speedrun the game it still feels ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ slow because of McQueen.

The gameplay is fine on his own I guess, though if you compare this game to any Cars Games like TVG or ROR. Then is bad.
Is pretty much average and is not that interesting, nor the mini-games. Is mostly empty and doesn't feel anything in it.
None of the mini-games enjoyed me nor the races at all which it sucks.

The PC Version is also bad aswell, there ain't much offer when it comes to Options for "Graphics" which is limited, there is Anti Aliasing, but it uses MSAA and there is only "On/Off", resolution is bad enough that is maxed out to 1440x900 or something, and no there ain't widescreen support. You will need to download it from a YouTube Video.
There are bugs, a little much, No 3 Loading Screens like from the consoles, sound effects when you accept on something, or when collecting bolts points. And much more, on the other hand though, is that the FPS is uncaped so it can basically go higher unlike the first game which was locked at 30 FPS.

Overall, I don't even recommended this game at all. It just sucks that Rainbow Studios ruined this game so much due to rushing, especially the areas which is just so bad. There are many leftovers on game files. An example being that Sally was supposed to be in the game, but it got removed. Which is unfortunate, and if you do plan on buying it, then please get Hi-Octane or PCS3. These mods improves the game a lot better than the vanilla game.
I also saw a few people saying that Cars Mater-National is the real Cars 2 Film, which no offense to those people by the way. But in my opinion, no. It does not fit at all as a Cars 2 Film, at least Cars 2 had a story in it. Even if it sucked, I will rather say that the first Cars game fits a lot more as Cars 2 Film.

TL;DR Story mode not interesting and it sucks, nor gameplay either and it has very issues with pacing because of McQueen. And PC Version sucks a lot & has issues aswell. And overall not recommended, get the game only if you use mods.

The PS3 version is better.

I don't know why people like this game more then the Original Game!
I mean yeah, better graphics, better preformance that's nice and all but
1st, the creators of this game took so much free roam away! Radiator springs? You can only go down the middle of town. Go around the Radiator Cap and that's about it. Tailfin pass? You can't even go up Tailfin Pass! You can only go in the short area around the Hotel. Ornament Valley? It's almost not the same at all from the original. Yes, it has 4 new areas, but you can't even go through 2 of them! Plus, there is this strange new area next to the enterence of Ornament Valley. Of course, it's blocked off. The only thing you can do is to do the races and Minigames! There are next to no jumps or any secret areas at all! But with the original Cars the Video Game, the free roam map is huge! There are even areas you would never think you could go to that you could in the original game! But not in Mater National. Plus, Mater National has about 6 new characters. The original on the other hand, has 10 Brand new Characters! Plus it has alot more tracks, and playable characters

(Edit) The only reason to get this game would be for Hi-Octane edition. Which is a mod for this game that adds all of the characters that you could never play as in any of the game and also it adds the tracks from the original cars game and more!.

I tried to change controls on both controller and keyboard but neither of them changed. I have scrolled through hundreds of the guides to try and fix it, but no luck(original controls sucks i hate them). Just wanted to try everyone's childhood game but unfortunately, i couldn't have a try.

It`s okay,basically Mater being the host of an racing tournament calling different cars from all over the world,that`s kinda cool I guess.

It`s the same like in the first game,but you already start with one bar of boost and you can go backwards mid air which you couldn`t go in the first game so that`s something.

It recycles most of the OST from the first game but it adds new ones as well,my favorite being Apollo 440-Stop The Rock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pURJDToKA0k

We are introduced to a new cast of racers from all over the world,Emma from UK,Gudmund from Sweden,Koji from Japan,Otto from Germany and Giovanni from Italy. And some minor ones as well. Tho I still question why Sally is never seen or being talked about in the game? Couldn`t the devs/movie makers get the license from Porsche or was the voice actor busy? I don`t know,but it`s still strange to not see Sally not even at least once...Overall I dislike these characters.

Mini-games are actual garbage,and not fun to complete,the races are okay tho...

The biggest disavantage of this game is that 75% of the map is impossible to explore which is a HUGE letdown compared to the first game,also music doesn`t play while your driving in free roam,unless you get close to a marker...

Finally something good about this game,it plays at 60fps unlike the original which is locked at 30.

Another good point is that we can choose our difficulty in Story mode as well,if you want to play on Expert difficulty,you`ll have to enter this cheat in the Options menu: CHMPION.I completed it once and it was extremely hard to complete it,I had to restart some races 3-5 times to get 1st place,so finally,a true competition from the CPU.

The game itself it`s not bad on it`s own,but you are better off playing the first game or Cars Race-O-Rama,especially if you want to explore the map.

For a game one console generation above its predecessor, which was Cars: The Videogame, Mater-National Championship feels very cheap compared to the original game, both quality and quantity-wise.

Structure of the game is way more boring than the first game. Cars: The Videogame had juggled its story mode to include unique races and some minigames so the player wouldn't feel bored. You do a normal race circuit, then 1v1 Sheriff at night as McQueen and then get to play as Mater in Rustbucket race, as well as play a minigame. This game is mostly standard racing with 4 other cars and only relays thrown here and there. Half of the minigames are locked when you first arrive to Tailfin Pass and Ornament Valley.

Controls themselves feel weaker or the tracks just got weirder from the last game. Powerslide doesn't give the player as much control over turning as it did before.

There's also arguably less races in Mater-National, than in the original videogame (9 road races and 4 stadium races vs. 19 road races and 5 Piston Cup races. I count Rustbucket, Monster Truck races and Relays as minigames due to their structure) and while I do like the tracks in Mater-National, especially the ones in Ornament Valley, the races all play exactly the same. In the original you at least had some gimmicks like racing 1v1 or as monster trucks, here they were changed to be minigame-like races with multiple levels, separate from the main story.

Minigames in Mater-National are decent. I still feel there's a minimal downgrade compared to Cars: The Videogame. I may be biased but High Speed Heist, Lightning Strikes Back and Sheriff's Hot Pursuit win me over more than any minigame in Mater-National.

The character roster in my opinion got worse. It is bigger but some characters were replaced with cars introduced and relevant in this game, which aren't as cool as what we had in the last game. They replaced iconic characters the likes of Wingo and Chick Hicks with some generic racing cars and a Ferrari. The only newcommer I'd consider at least somewhat cool is Gudmund. They didn't even bring back some racers that appear in this game in person as NPCs you get to race against like Sheriff and Count Spatula.

They also cheaped out on localization. For my country, we had original movie VAs in Cars: The Videogame. Here not only did they hire different people to voice the characters but also only recorded some quotes for the gameplay and used a lector for the cutscenes instead. Add insult to injury.

Overall, this game is cheaply made and just isn't worth it even for nostalgia value. If you want to buy a Cars game, just go check out Cars: The Videogame instead. That game at least can be called somewhat good.

Game is decent enough, as for this port? Garbage.

60fps, wow cool. What about V-Sync? It doesn't exist? Well have fun with screen tearing at its fullest you donkey.

Graphics are from the PlayStation 2/ Xbox 360 ports of the game instead of its superior PlayStation 3 port, why even release the inferior version?

Oh hey, you have a modern widescreen monitor? Well too bad! There is NO widescreen option, enjoy seeing a wide car on your screen, how can you EVEN keep the game like this? Thank god for the fans who made patches, but that still doesn't excuse the lack of options.

Don't even BOTHER purchasing this port unless you want to mod it. A complete joke, they didn't give two craps about porting it like they should have.

Good game if you want to give yourself curple tunnel, AKA You can't use a controller and From what I could tell You couldn't change the keys.