Price: £39.99

Players: 1-2

Gas, Break, Honk; Gas, Break, Honk; Gas, Gas, Gas; Honk, Honk, Honk. Yes it's another driving game and this one has the ambition to be the PS2 equivalent to Carmageddon. The basic idea here is to race around each of the different landscapes such as Forest, Snow and Desert, picking up contraband and delivering it at the required destination, although this amounts to little more than driving over a green block first and then through red flares posing as checkpoints second. At this point I'll mention the usual that there are several cars you can drive and a number of teams, or gangs in this case, up against each other.

There are several ways to play the game : Smuggler's Mission: You're required to do as described above, starting with easy missions but they soon progress to become more difficult, especially with the rozzers on your tail and it's easy to attract their attention. Joyridin': A practice round in which you can drive anywhere and everywhere. Turf War: There are three sub-options here : Crooks 'N' Smugglers: It's every man for himself when you're each racing for the contraband, stealing it from each other and making for the checkpoint. This leads to apparently seeing several changes of objective per level. One second you're after contraband, then it changes to "opponent pickup" so you go chasing after another car, then it changes to another car if they steal it from the one who has it, etc. The one to grab the most in the time limit, or the maximum pick-ups allowed, is the winner. Loot Grab: similar to the above, but with two teams going after several pieces of loot. Again, the team to grab the most is the winner. Checkpoint Race: does exactly what it says on the tin.

The cars move fast enough, but the graphics are fairly sparse and certainly do nothing to promote the PS2 and all that it's meant to stand for. Occasionally when you crash into another car there's plenty of clipping as the cars "merge" (!) Sometimes the real-world physics leave a bit to be desired when your car rolls over and unrealistically rights itself. On the other hand, it's fun to drive into people, run them over and watch their bodies fly into the air. The vibration feature isn't used a great deal though. It's mainly for crashing into other cars and hardly ever when driving about over terrain unless you thrash about too much. The sound? The engine revs, the horn honks and police car sirens go "Woo-woo-woo-woo!", etc. Big woo!

Overall, if you're going to get this, make it a rental at first. It'll provide an evening's entertainment but that's about it in my eyes and if you pay forty notes for it, you will be disappointed.

GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ORIGINALITY ENJOYMENT
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.