Last year, Microsoft’s very good Midtown Madness also licensed the VW New Beetle. This year it is Infogrames’ turn to license the bug with their game entitled “Beetle Buggin’ (also called Beetle Crazy Cup overseas). Let’s have a look and see how the game plays.

Beetle Buggin is a racing game-with a twist. Instead of the normal “race around a few tracks to win” game, I would call it more of an Olympic event. More on that later..let’s get the specifics out of the way.

A full install of the game will run you about 328MB, which is pretty good these days. The game, which was developed by Xpiral for Infogrames, supports 3D cards with resolutions available from 320x240 to 1024x768 on my Voodoo 3 3500. The game supports up to 6 players via LAN and although I wasn’t able to try it, it says it supports force feedback peripherals.

After you’ve installed, you’ll see a FMV into with various pictures of Beetles driving around. While the movie is playing, you hear a Beach Boys-like musical tune. It fits the game perfectly (all fun), and now you’re ready to play the game.

You are brought to a rather huge menu of options. You can elect to play in five different types of events: speed racing, jumping, buggy racing, monster truck or cross racing. All five games have their ups and downs and I mean that literally.