R.U.S.H. EX

What do you get if you cross racing from checkpoint to checkpoint with a whole heap of Burnout?

In real life, it'd probably result in a police chase down the M62, a wet patch on your jeans and a night sharing a cell with Big Bad Dave, the guy with the strange twinkle in his eye.

Luckily, R.U.S.H. EX is here to save you from such perils. Managing to marry both racing styles, this is a game defined by the most minimal of margins, where one mantra springs to mind from beginning to end: dodge or die.

If that sounds familiar, that's because this isn't R.U.S.H.'s first crack at car carnage.

Just like the original, this is a game that presents the highway as a playground, not concerning itself with racing for position, but instead charging down the carriageway at top speed, the idea being to avoid collisions and keep the pace high to make it to each checkpoint in time.

But while there are no opponents to beat, there are plenty of other cars, the game marking them on screen with red arrows constantly keeping you aware of just which lanes are about to be clogged up.

As such, darting in and out of the flow of cars is the key, any impact with oncoming vehicles or barriers turning you into roadkill (albeit with a handy restart).

On the other hand, nudging cars from behind is positively encouraged, the resulting collisions causing flames and flares aplenty. Even if aggressive driving isn't in your nature, it's hard to avoid indulging in it when it's presented to you on a plate.

That's largely because, frankly, there's not much else to do. Your actions are limited to shifting gear with the '5' key, and steering left and right with '4' and '6' respectively. Stay on the straight and narrow and the so-called R.U.S.H. tends to be anything but.

That said, as the stages pass the traffic increases, making constant switches from one lane to the next a necessity. Indeed, the chances of making through a race without some sort of collision becomes non-existent as the tracks get more complex.

The problem is, it's soon apparent that R.U.S.H. EX is a one trick pony. Its simplicity – most notably the fact that each and every track is entirely straight – helps keep the pace of play up and makes the obstacles rather than the track itself the challenge.

But that's exactly what its predecessor did, with this follow up failing to do anything new with the setup.

As a result, as soon as you come up against a checkpoint you just can't make, it's unlikely you'll give it all too many tries. R.U.S.H. EX, though brilliantly uncomplicated, feels a touch tired a year on.