This is either the best terrible game or the worst brilliant game I’ve ever played.


The list of things wrong with it is long.

1 – It costs £1.79, but to get more than two tracks you need to pay extra. (Though more are coming free in 2010, so they say.)

2 – You can’t seem to turn the music off.

3 – There’s no game structure at all. You just pick a race type, track and car and go for a drive.

4 – The auto-accelerate option – a Ridge killer if ever there was one – is on my default.

5 – The killer. Even Namco say it doesn’t really work on anything older than a 3GS, but even on my 3GS it runs like an absolute dog, with shocking framerate issues and horrible slowdown.

So, yes, it’s rubbish. But… but… the actual driving model is brilliant. When I slide round a corner sideways before hitting the boost just as a straighten up and scream down a hill into the sunset it’s just about the greatest thing in the world.


You see, my head knows this is a shocking travesty of a game, a promising beta released too soon just to get it out for Christmas, but when I’m actually playing it my heart and my gut love it like nothing else.

It’s absolutely brilliant… but dear god, it’s awful.