Cars: Mater-National Championship is a racing video game developed by Rainbow Studios and published by THQ for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance, released on October 29, 2007. It is the sequel to the 2006 video game Cars, which was based on the Cars film from Pixar. This is the last Pixar game to be released on the Game Boy Advance.
Following on from the events of the first game, Lightning McQueen is beginning construction on his racing headquarters and Mater hosts his own racing series to promote the event.
It is followed by Cars Race-O-Rama.
Tropes relating to this game:
- Adaptation Expansion: This game continues to develop the three areas from the first game in different ways:
- In Radiator Springs, a new path has been carved through one of the rock formations near the courthouse, Fillmore has opened up a nature preserve in the forest area, a canyon full of water, tornadoes and cacti replaces Sarge's boot camp and the main plot of the game revolves around Lightning building his new racing headquarters on the site of the abandoned hotel.
- Ornament Valley has been updated with an airport, a mass of sand and rocks known as "the turkey", and Sarge has opened up a mass of tunnels near the Rustbucket Stadium.
- Tailfin Pass's mine has been expanded upon into an abandoned mining town, and the area now has both a giant cave and an entire winding canyon route.
- Bag of Spilling: While Lightning retains most of his abilities from the first game like powersliding and backwards driving, he's inexplicably lost two tanks of boost and has to reobtain them.
- Broken Bridge: Most of the new areas are completely blocked off in the open world, only being accessible during specific races.
- Fillmore's nature preserve is blocked off with signs, and Sarge's boot camp is closed on both ends.
- The turkey is also blocked off with signs, and Sarge's tunnels are closed off.
- In Tailfin Pass, the mining town seems to take place in an entirely separate area inaccessible from the main map, while the canyon route (and by extension, most of Tailfin Pass from the original game) is blocked off by a closed door.
- Call-Back: In The Stinger to the first game, Lightning put his new Piston Cup in a "good place"; Doc's clinic. In The Stinger to this game, Lightning puts the stickers Lizzie gave him in a "safe place"; on a sign near his racing headquarters.
- Canon Foreigner: Besides the several returning from the first gamenote , Mater-National introduces several new challengers in Philip, Giovanni, Otto, Gudmund, Koji, Emma and Yuri.
- Character Customization: As in the original game, you can change Lightning's paint job using paint cans scattered around the hub worlds, and now you can also change Lightning's tires once you collect a full set. Once you collect all of the necessary parts, you can also turn Lightning into his monster truck form and free-roam around the hub to your heart's content.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
- El Guapo and Papo are the only Canon Foreigners from the first game that don't return for Mater-National.
- Sally, Mack, Chick Hicks, The King, Darrel Cartrip and the Delinquent Road Hazards (minus Snot Rod) are completely absent after appearing in the previous game.
- Cosmetic Award: By completing every level of a minigame, Lizzie will put a sticker based on the game on the back of Lightning's spoiler. Once all of the stickers are collected, however, Lightning will take them off and instead display them on a sign by his racing headquarters.
- Demoted to Extra: Sheriff and Count Spatula go from playable characters in the first game to NPCs in this game.
- Game Mod: The PC edition has several mods, the most notable being the Hi-Octane Edition
, which makes every character from across the original game, Mater-National and Cars Race-O-Rama playable, brings back every track from the first game (as well as several from Race-O-Rama) and adds several new tracks and paint jobs for every character as well. - Group Picture Ending: The game ends with Lightning, Mater, and the whole gang getting a group photo taken outside the new racing headquarters.
- Guest Fighter: Mike and Sulley's car forms appear as playable characters.
- Language Barrier: Koji speaks in exclusive Japanese. However, Mater can understand him fluently.
- Promoted to Playable: After being NPCs in the console version of the first game, Fillmore and Sarge are now fully playable. Luigi is a downplayed variant in that he goes from only being playable in a single minigame to being entirely usable in races.
- Shout-Out: Otto states he participates in Le Cars, a 24-hour consecutive race. This is a pun on 24 Hours of Le Mans, a French rally race of the same name.
