Disney Pixar Cars Mater-National Championship

Cars Mater-National Championship is a racing game featuring Lightning McQueen from the Pixar film Cars. Hook invites racers from different countries to a racing series in Radiator Springs. Between competitions, players can explore the small town and take on additional tasks.

Cars Mater-National Championship was released on Oct 29, 2007 in North America. In Germany, the racing game hit the market in November 2007 under the title Cars: Hook International. The PC version was also released on Steam in February 2015.

The racing game was released for PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and Nintendo DS. There was also a separate Game Boy Advance version. The Xbox 360 version can be played on newer Xbox consoles via backward compatibility, without becoming a separate Xbox One or Xbox Series version.

With Lightning McQueen, you race against well-known characters and international rivals. The races use easy-to-learn arcade controls and changing tracks. Between competitions, you can drive freely through Radiator Springs and discover more tasks.

The original minimum requirements call for Windows 2000, XP or Vista, a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP at 1.6 GHz, 512 MB RAM, a DirectX 9.0c graphics card with 64 MB of memory and 2 GB of free hard drive space. The current Steam client, by contrast, requires at least Windows 10.

The centre of the story is a tournament that Hook hosts in Radiator Springs. Racers from around the world take on Lightning McQueen in different events. The competitions combine free driving in the game world with individual races and tasks.

Radiator Springs and Lightning McQueen's race headquarters are the starting point of the adventure. Between races, you can drive through the game world, find more tasks and revisit well-known places from Cars.

Apart from the races, there are more than 20 mini-games. These include Ramone's "Rhythmic Rumble" and Fillmore's "Fuel Frenzy". These tasks break up the race flow and offer different challenges than the main driving competitions.

Alongside Lightning McQueen and Hook, other vehicles from Radiator Springs appear. New international racers are among the guests. Mike and Sulley from Monsters, Inc. also make guest appearances.

The PC version supports local multiplayer with split screen. Steam also offers Remote Play Together, which allows local co-op play to be streamed over the internet.

The versions for different platforms were developed with several studios. Rainbow Studios developed the original version, Incinerator Studios worked on the PS3 version, and Tantalus Interactive was responsible for the Nintendo DS version. Equipment and presentation may vary by system.

On PC, Cars Mater-National Championship can be played fully in German. Steam lists German user interface and voice-over for the German version. In addition, English, French, Italian, Spanish and Polish text and voices are available, among others.