MOTORSTORM RC

Sony
Vita (also on PS3/PSN)

Bigger! Harder! Faster! More! As well as sounding like Jeremy Clarkson, it’s also pretty much the catchcry for modern life.

So, bugger us if the MotorStorm peeps haven’t jammed a defiant middle digit skywards and shrunkenated their usual motorised fare down to pocket-sized, erm, size. Remote control versions of everything from superminis to muscle cars, buggies to monster trucks abound, along with 16 tracks that’ll be familiar to fans of the 1:1 scale series. Each appears with various festival challenges, from straight races to time trials to hot laps to drifting. Do good and you get stars. Get stars and unlock stuff. Play stuff and get more stars, thus unlocking more stuff. MMMmmm... sensibleness.

It’s kind of 8-bit classic Micro Machines meets Super Sprint, drenched in MotorStorm vibe, and stick us up a pole and call us Magnum if it isn’t bloody ace.

As well as alarmingly addictive racing – seriously, if you’re even remotely (heh) competitive then you’ll have trouble putting this down for anything other than a heart attack, and then you’ll likely grab your USB cable with your last conscious gasp hoping it might plug into the hospital’s machine that goes ‘ping!’ - erm, sentence too long now. Uh, yes. You’ve also a toy box to faff in, testing various antennae-equipped machines, doing stunts, kicking goals, shooting hoops and generally being playful.

Despite no online multiplayer, there’s a superb ripof... erm, take on Criterion’s ‘AutoLog’ called ‘Pitwall’. It’s leaderboards a-go-go as most everything you do is compared to others worldwide and, most fiendishly, your friends. Smack their ghost up and they’ll be chasing your spectresque arse around the track hankering sweet retribution.

Control can be finicky – we suggest customising to ‘alternate’ with shoulder buttons for brakes and speed - but once you click then getting this off you will be a cold, dead hands situation. Machine go ‘ping!’ now…

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