Racing Fever GT (2D)

Defensive driving is all you hear about from instructors, the police and road safety groups. Go slowly, don't sit on the tail of the car in front, and don't ever, ever, try to get past the coffin-dodger ahead by pushing her off the road.

You may wonder sometimes if you would be better off ignoring all this – and Racing Fever GT, a stylish but ultimately simplistic and repetitive racer, offers you the opportunity. A driving game with a difference, instead of competing for positions in a race or trying to get round a track in the fastest time, the focus here is on carnage and tricks.

Unfortunately, the lack of variety is obvious from the get go – the game comes with three modes, each of which is too similar to the others.

The first mode, Crash Derby, sets you the task of chasing after and ramming a number of vans off the road. The faster you crash into them the more points you'll get, and once you achieve a certain amount of points you complete the level.

Jump Challenge is a similar affair, requiring you to hit ramps that are scattered across the road to gather points and complete the level. Again, the same rule applies – the faster you're going, the more points you get. For some reason that's never explained, there's also a rival car racing ahead of you that you have to try and ram, as well as making the jumps. Hit enough jumps and ram this rival car enough, and you'll complete the level.

The last mode on offer, the Two-wheeler Challenge, is also the most inventive. Yet even this has a similar formula to the other two. Little wedge ramps have been placed along the track, and it's up to you to hit them and flip your car onto two wheels. Once you've done so, you have to drive in a straight line to keep your wheels in the air. Any movement in either direction will result in your car tipping back down and you losing your stream of points.

As simplistic as it sounds, Racing Fever GT isn't easy. The courses you race across are full of long sweeping curves and bends, and this makes lining your car up to hit anything a testing task. To make things more difficult still, the road is divided into three lanes, with the small objects you're aiming at only filling up one.

Your car races down the road at an fair old lick (automatically accelerating) and you aren't given much warning when something's about to appear. You simply get a tiny arrow in whichever lane the object's set to appear, a split second before it does, and then bang, it's gone. Blink and you'll miss it.

With a bright visual style to match its simplistic gameplay, Racing Fever GT looks pretty good. To draw a direct comparison, we'd say the visuals are on a similar level to early Game Boy Advance racing games, with psuedo-3D rolling hills and curvy tracks snaking all over the place. The racers and people you come across are nicely stylised, and the vehicle you drive is well animated. It's just a shame there's only one of them.

Ultimately, Racing Fever GT is let down by its own straightforwardness. It's a competent game, but with only one car on offer and just three overly similar and not particularly exciting modes, the entire game can be polished off in about an hour, with little to no replay value. Whilst it may be fun in short doses, we'd advise you spend your money elsewhere.