And then I remembered that this arrived from Play this morning, so I decided to play it.

The main game I bought it for is Rush 2049. I was a bit worried because everyone’s been saying it’s rubbish, but it turns out everyone’s wrong. The graphics haven’t aged very well and, yes, the handling is incredibly twitchy (especially on the default settings) but that’s not really important. The important thing is that the track design is as great as it ever was. I spent half an hour on one track, just searching for shortcuts, alternate routes and coins. (There are coins dotted around the track which disappear permanently when you collect them. I’m not sure if there’s any reason to collect beyond wanting to, but I want to.) I came last in every race and couldn’t find a way into a lot of the shortcuts I could see, but I had fun. Fun! Then I spent ten minutes in stunt mode and managed to miss every coin I tried to collect. Never mind. I’ll be back.

I then tried Hydro Thunder, because it’s meant to be the good game in the pack. And it’s surprisingly excellent. The first track is short and boring, but after that there are huge open tracks with lots of detail and the game bursts into life. It actually feels like racing on water, with the all the necessary bumpiness. I played it enough to unlock the Medium tracks and then quit out.

I get the feeling that either of those games would be worth the fiver I paid for the disc and there are a fair few more on there, too. (Though they’re probably rubbish.)