Falling somewhere between Super Mario Kart and Wipeout, Ubi Soft's S.C.A.R.S. mixes cute graphics with familiar arcade racing, power-ups and all. The particular similarity to Mario Kart, both in feel and appearance, proves fortunate since too many games use Psygnosis' Wipeout as a blueprint. And while a few have tried to capture Mario Kart's formula already (such as Manic Media's Super Karts and its sequel, Manic Karts), none succeeded quite as well as S.C.A.R.S.

The premise in S.C.A.R.S. (which stands for Super Computer Animal Racing Simulation) is that super computers have taken over the world and now entertain themselves with virtual races between vehicles based on animals. This story only has one real impact on the game: The cars look like animals. They aren't so much anthropomorphic as anthropomobile; they're cars simply shaped like beasts. Each car has unique traits, loosely inspired by the animal that shares its form. The mammoth car, for instance, is slower but more heavily armored, while the shark car is faster and weaker. There are three other cars available to you at the beginning (mantis, lion, and rhino) and four more that have to be earned (panther, scorpion, cheetah, and cobra).