Stunt Car Racing: 99 Tracks

There was a sustained period of four or five seasons when motorsport's flagship - Formula 1 - bored folk around the world to tears. After being the lynchpin of Sunday afternoons for years, with Senna, Mansell and co. drawing in huge audiences across the globe, a succession of technical upgrades to the cars took the fire out the sport, making it safer for the drivers but conversely more sterile for those of us left watching.

Now, no-one is saying that we all tuned in just to see drivers risk their lives unnecessarily, but it's fair to say that the pursuit of better and better cars actually began to kill to sport. If you hadn't already guessed, there's an interesting parallel there with racing titles on the mobile; with more and more trying to replicate 3D HD experiences on your handset, upping their graphical capability in the process, you could argue that the gameplay itself is actually suffering.

How refreshing it is, then, to find a game that takes a more simplistic approach to how it looks in order to serve up some truly frantic and fun gameplay. Stunt Car Racing is a 2D racer, with the 'tracks' scrolling across the screen from right to left, but it actually offers a more ballsy experience than any of its hi-def rivals, with speed, flips and tricks all the order of the day. Racing on your phone doesn't really get much more marvellously manic than this.

A lot of that is to do with the fact that Stunt Car Racing keeps things simple. Taking care of acceleration (boosts aside) for you, it leaves you to guide your car over the various lumps and bumps that litter the course, tipping it either backwards or forwards as it flies through the air. Some do you favours, providing you with massive jumps that you can exploit by performing 360s and so forth, and others act as hurdles, damaging your car upon impact and slowing you down.

It's these two forces - grabbing air in your vehicle to earn you extra boost, and trying to overcome the various obstacles on the way - that reign throughout Stunt Car Racing, but unlike some other titles that would ask you to choose between either a wild or a cautious approach, it's the risk-taking that actually helps combat the game's challenges. Success here requires you to spend as much time as you can in the air as possible, with speed a must and tricks a lifeblood rather than a luxury.

That's because, by doing so, you avoid the numerous pitfalls below. As well as literal gaps in the track, which can see you smashing into cliff edges or ravines (ending the race right there and then as a result), there are also sections of rock and abandoned cars that gradually chip away at your car's health on contact. Just like smashing into a wall, if your car's health reaches rock bottom, then it'll explode and that's the end of your race.

So, making the most of the jumps on offer is the key, with airtime and mid-air spins filling your boost bar, enabling you to up your speed when you do reach ground level so that you can use the boost to fly just that little bit farther when the next jump pops up.

Prudes beware; speed really does pay in Stunt Car Racing's world, and it's this constant need to be reckless - but skilful with it - that fuels the fun. Nothing beats the feeling of performing a successful 360 at high speed, landing perfectly on the ground afterwards, zooming off ready to take on the next jump.

Stunt Car Racing could teach its spec-obsessed rivals a thing or two. Whether you're competing against yourself or challenging a friend, with 99 tracks on offer, this is a title that shuns picture-perfection in an effort to deliver both in terms of pure content and entertainment value. Ratings watchers need not fear - this is one title that deserves to pull in a bigger audience than a 2D racer in a 3D world is perhaps accustomed to.