In-game advertising has come a long way, because though it used to be just simple billboards placed in a game or a licensed song from a band on a specific label, things are turning to the more extreme now, so that we're seeing advertising coming first with the videogame following second. With Burger King's new line of games, exactly that is happening, but does that necessarily mean there is no fun to be had?

I like Burger King food – I don't have to be sold on it. When I make a trip it is always two singles and a strawberry shake with nothing varying unless I want a chicken nugget to go for the next day. So when I heard about the Burger King games, I bought what I needed (a Value meal) and bought the game for a cheap $3.99. Up first was Pocketbike Racer – a Mario Kart-esque racer that takes place on tiny motorcycles (pocketbikes) instead of go-carts

There are five different race types in the game: 1) Standard Race (racing around tracks with boost and weapons enabled), 2) Battle Royale (win by hitting your enemies enough time with the weapons), 3) Cone Trial (try to reach the required amount of points by going through the cones), 4) Ultimate Time Trial (you against the clock to get your best time), and 5) Hardcore Racing (exactly the same as Standard Race, but without the use of boost or weapons).

After playing the race types, only Standard Race and Hardcore Racing hold any value, with Battle Royale following in next if you play online against real people. Ultimate Time Trial works well for practice, but as a single player game, three out of the five race types are completely worthless and simply no fun. There are three tournament cups for each of the four main race types (Ultimate Time Trial not included), but unlike other racing games, it didn't seem like the higher ranked tournaments brought anything different in regards to advanced AI or a harder difficulty level.

Racing is easy, with the left trigger controlling brake and the right trigger controlling gas. Beyond that, you can boost with the B-button, powerslide with the A-button, and then finally shoot your weapons with the X-button. Powerslides take some getting used to (and even then they aren't perfect for every situation) and to access boost and weapons you must through enough cones to raise a meter (the higher the meter is lit the more boost you have and the better weapon you get).

As far as weapons go, you've got The Shield (a shield, duh), Straight Fire Bottle Rockets (bottle rockets that shoot straight out, duh), Firecrackers (act as mines in a regular Kart racer), Homing Bottle Rockets (once again, self explanatory), Flash Bomb (have you blinded and shouting out "Bright light! Bright light!" in your best Gizmo impersonation), and then finally the Disruptor (reverses the controls of the driver it is fired upon). All the weapons technically do their job, but they still feel pretty worthless, especially the Flash Bomb, which blinds even you if you use it, so what the heck is the point?

There are exactly five levels in the game, including a race around a Burger King parking lot, a race through a suburban wonderland filled with SUVs and backyard pools, a race through a construction zone and through a half finished skyscraper, a mansion and its luscious estate, and finally the dreamy Whopperland (at least I'll call it Whopperland) that you might remember from the commercials with Darius Rucker singing in them (an instrumental only version of his song plays in the background too). The levels look decent, but certainly not up to the standards of the Xbox or Xbox 360 (depending on what system you are playing it on). The one really good thing about the levels, however, are that they feature several shortcuts, which greatly take you off the beaten path and if successful will have you pulling away in the lead.

Sound work (beyond the nostalgic catchiness of the Darius Rucker song) is poor and below average, as the effects sound canned and I refused to listen to any repeating track more than once, and instead opted each and every time to crank the CD currently resting in my CD player (Rockstar Supernova incase anyone wondered).

The game does have an interesting (to say the least) small roster of characters, featuring everyone's most scary Burger King mascot, Whopper Jr. (guy in a burger costume), Brooke Burke, and the Subservient Chicken just to name a few. You can also create your own character for use, or as I like to call it, "Tweak an already existing one." Basically, there will be about five character types, which you can insignificantly change and name, but it is one of the most lacking create-a-character modes I've ever seen in a game. The bikes also aren't much, because though there are some you can unlock, the only thing that really changes is the color, plus a few stat changes as well.

The game also has Xbox Live multiplayer, which should be a good thing, but I've got to plead the fifth and issue a "No Comment" on this particular nugget. You see, each time I tried to connect to Xbox Live to give the game a play to test it out, not once could I connect. Most times I couldn't even get a match to show on my screen (especially any Ranked matches) and on the single time I managed to get into the lobby of a game, it dropped everyone and after that I could never get in again.

For $3.99 you can't really beat what you get – a more expensive Happy Meal toy. However, for a few bucks more, you could probably go to the nearest store that sales used games, and pickup something a whole lot better for $5 bucks. Even at $3.99 Pocketbike Racer is just an adequate attempt at the cart-racing genre of games.

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