Oh, and did I mention that this game is astoundingly good? Because it is.

Just rock hard.

Online, though, is a different story. There were no ranked matches being played, but I found a player match. Had to sit in the lobby for ages waiting for more people to join, but once we got five people together it was brilliant. Just like single player, but with cars that made mistakes and reacted to me. Also, I wasn’t awful. I came second in most of the races, behind someone called Landofspring, who came first every time – but not by miles. It was even fun when I crashed into a wall near a jump and had the cars behind me land on my roof and zoom off into the distance.

This really is very good, you know. The feedback is exceptional, given the lack of rumble. You know when you’ve slowed down too much, when you’ve let the back end go too far, when you’re using the wrong tyres for the road surface, etc.

It’s hard as nails, too.

It also seems to be rock hard. I got thirty out of thirty points in the first event on my first try, but haven’t been able to in any of the other events so far.

I’d have played it more, but I’m sick at the moment and after a few minutes it makes my head want to explode. Annoying, that.

I’m still not entirely sure how to maximise my speed around corners, especially in the Apline stages. I really think I need to play with sound on for a while, because the tyre sounds will probably give a little bit of extra feedback.

The PSP really has some great racing games. Ridge Racer, OutRun, TOCA and now this. (I still dream of a re-release of OutRun with a decentg framerate, though.)

It also doesn’t seem to have the same track deformation technology as its big brother, but it’s still a great achievement. The framerate seems solid, the pop-up is limited to objects a very, very long way away and there are even some persistant objects that can get spread out over the track during the race, such as tyres, rocks and fenceposts. (Well, it is a Bugbear game, after all.)

I started off doing a few races in Quick Race mode, getting used things. I found that the d-pad works better than the nub and the wobbling bonnet-cam view is better than the default chase-cam view and was ready to get stuck in, so it was on to the first Championship. I won the first two races with ease, but the third and final race was on ice and snow and I only managed to finish third due to a terrible first lap.

Overall, I’m very happy with the game. I probably should have waited until this evening to play it, because now I’ll be itching to get back all afternoon while I’m working. Somehow web design has lost its allure.