What a barrel of laughs this one is! The souped up cars look fantastically over the top and the racing is even more so, with passive and active power-ups and an insane AI for the computer controlled cars.
The game comes into its own in two player mode, where you can co-operate as a team and take on a 6 of the generous selection of cars in the game in various championship rounds. The difficulty curve is about right, although some races rely on you making three perfect circuits of a track and the leading AI car having a bit of a crash at some point.
It is all fast and furious fun, though and the pace you have to keep up over three laps is mind melting in some cases. To quote my team mate: “I forgot to blink again!” is something quite easily done in the heat of battle and trance-like concentration you’ll need on tracks such as The Gauntlet, Surf N Turf and Outer Limits.
The only downsides are the fact it’s pretty easy to complete all the championships – there isn’t GT like depth in this title. Sometimes having to rely on a fluke victory to open up the next level is very frustrating – try needing to finish second in an absolutely torrid race only to have it ripped from your grasp by a slightly misjuded final corner – it makes you swear and look to the heavens in desperation!
If you’re holding out for GT, this title deserves to sit alongside it on your shelf – as I said, it doesn’t have the depth, but the fun-o-meter is off the scale and the Twister effect has to be seen just to see how good it is.
I’m not entirely sure how they do it, but the Tom Clancy endorsed Net Force books seem to be getting better and better. This, to my mind, is the cream of the crop – gone are the tedious explanations about the “mysterious man who lives in isolation with the mountain goat who painstakingly builds one weapon every six months before meditating for a similar duration” every time someone pulls out a gun!