What you can expect to come in Glacier 3 is best forewarned when you boot the game. When you are greeted by a shrill, obnoxious siren that caps off the title music, you have to wonder if the rest of the game and all that it entails will be so unpleasant. The answer, sadly, is an unequivocal "yes".

Glacier 3 is a series of races undertaken around - you guessed it - glaciers. It has a "story mode", although there is no story. It is merely a sequence of races. Each race contains you and three other AI controlled drivers, as there is no multiplayer. On the map you may find powerups, two that charge your turbo and three that provide ammo for your weapons, with which you may take other competitors out of the race.

In the one hour I spent in this game, I completed all six campaigns or four tracks each. Really, it is my opinion that there were only three campaigns and twelve maps, as each map and campaign has a counterpart reversal, with nothing more than the direction of the track changed and the start and endpoints swapped.

The map design isn't entirely bad. There is some variety, and the environments are as varied as you could ask for in a game called "glacier". There are ice sheets, cliffs, mountains and caves. However, while some heart was clearly put into their design, the game also feels very rushed and incomplete. This may be most obvious in your first race, when you drive into a massive jump and realize that you can change direction in mid-air, the worst sin committable in a "realistic" driving game. Perhaps you can forgive it as you race along the minute-long track, but you suddenly find yourself crashing into a wall of rocks placed at the middle of an overhang. You think you've crashed - and you technically have - but it's okay, as that rock wall is also the end-point of the race. There is no finish line, there is no obvious landmark, just a pile of rocks in which you and your three competitors burn until the game decides that it is time to show the results of the race.

The physics are wonky all around, even beyond the ability to change direction mid-air. You will find yourself moving in a direction other than that in which your wheels are pointing. You will hit objects or other cars, only to be vaulted back 30 feet, do a ragdoll flip or clip through a barrier. You will fire your weapons on flat ground, only for them to literally blow up in your face. While you hopelessly bounce along the track, you may despair, as you can only unlock new content by winning a campaign. However, the AI is just as helpless as you are, and with a few turbo powerups you will find yourself abusing the game mechanics, deliberately turboing off a cliff about a sharp turn, resetting, and turboing again in your newfound direction.

Bad music, barebones graphics, lack of customizability and content, lack of multiplayer support and so on are all forgivable. However, everything about this game is mediocre, and I do really mean everything, including aspects that you wouldn't even think about in most other racing games because Glacier 3 does wrong what most games do not. That this game was published on the Wii is astonishing, although that perhaps explains what is possibly the least comprehensive menu - consisting of two audio sliders - ever accomplished in a video game. To summarize, the game plays poorly, does not look nearly as good as the store page's screenshots suggest and is outdone even by racing games produced in the 90s.

What you can expect to come in Glacier 3 is best forewarned when you boot the game. When you are greeted by a shrill, obnoxious siren that caps off the title music, you have to wonder if the rest of the game and all that it entails will be so unpleasant. The answer, sadly, is an unequivocal "yes". Glacier 3 is a series of races undertaken around - you guessed it - glaciers. It has a "story mode", although there is no story. It is merely a sequence of races. Each race contains you and three other AI controlled drivers, as there is no multiplayer. On the map you may find powerups, two that charge your turbo and three that provide ammo for your weapons, with which you may take other competitors out of the race. In the one hour I spent in this game, I completed all six campaigns or four tracks each. Really, it is my opinion that there were only three campaigns and twelve maps, as each map and campaign has a counterpart reversal, with nothing more than the direction of the track changed and the start and endpoints swapped. The map design isn't entirely bad. There is some variety, and the environments are as varied as you could ask for in a game called "glacier". There are ice sheets, cliffs, mountains and caves. However, while some heart was clearly put into their design, the game also feels very rushed and incomplete. This may be most obvious in your first race, when you drive into a massive jump and realize that you can change direction in mid-air, the worst sin committable in a "realistic" driving game. Perhaps you can forgive it as you race along the minute-long track, but you suddenly find yourself crashing into a wall of rocks placed at the middle of an overhang. You think you've crashed - and you technically have - but it's okay, as that rock wall is also the end-point of the race. There is no finish line, there is no obvious landmark, just a pile of rocks in which you and your three competitors burn until the game decides that it is time to show the results of the race. The physics are wonky all around, even beyond the ability to change direction mid-air. You will find yourself moving in a direction other than that in which your wheels are pointing. You will hit objects or other cars, only to be vaulted back 30 feet, do a ragdoll flip or clip through a barrier. You will fire your weapons on flat ground, only for them to literally blow up in your face. While you hopelessly bounce along the track, you may despair, as you can only unlock new content by winning a campaign. However, the AI is just as helpless as you are, and with a few turbo powerups you will find yourself abusing the game mechanics, deliberately turboing off a cliff about a sharp turn, resetting, and turboing again in your newfound direction. Bad music, barebones graphics, lack of customizability and content, lack of multiplayer support and so on are all forgivable. However, everything about this game is mediocre, and I do really mean everything, including aspects that you wouldn't even think about in most other racing games because Glacier 3 does wrong what most games do not. That this game was published on the Wii is astonishing, although that perhaps explains what is possibly the least comprehensive menu - consisting of two audio sliders - ever accomplished in a video game. To summarize, the game plays poorly, does not look nearly as good as the store page's screenshots suggest and is outdone even by racing games produced in the 90s.