• Format: Wii (version reviewed), PS3, 360
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Ubisoft
• Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier
• Players: 1-4 (offline only)
• Site: http://raymanorigins.uk.ubi.com/#

If you owned a SNES and/or Mega Drive (AKA Genesis) way back when, your gaming life would have been spent riding a surfboard of pleasure over a stormy sea of side-scrolling platformers. Many were terrible. Many were not; many were carefully crafted adventures that considered fun and wonder rights rather than privileges where gamers are concerned. Do you remember these games? Rayman Origins certainly does.

The first thing to hit you about this game, long before you even get to take control, is the amount of time and love that has clearly been poured into the graphics. Hand-drawn, sumptuously animated and relentlessly detailed, it looks like no other commercial release of the last ten years or more. Though the shamelessly bright colours and bloodless violence invite comparisons to a cartoon, in truth it looks more like what it truly is; an inventive, aggressively non-aggressive videogame.

The sound too stands out for all the right reasons, with the nonsense language (including split-second snatches of real words) refusing to ever make you cringe, with the moments of unintelligible sing-song delightful rather than twee. The music too is wonderful. Rather than a looping soundtrack that could be slapped onto the end of any cutesy-looking game, this is a title that has been scored. Two orchestras, a wealth of instruments, and a range of styles ensure that you’re presented with a perfectly happy audio-visual marriage.

Despite running at a lower resolution than this, the Wii version still looks wonderful.

Children of the eighties will remember the best of the 16-bit platformers, and to say that Rayman Origins plays like one of these goes a long way to making any review redundant. For the benefit of the uninitiated, the basic premise runs thus: each level starts at the left of the screen, and the exit is somewhere (very) far to the right. A combination of enemies and tricky jumps – often resulting in instant death – stand between you and success. To get through you’ll be jumping on heads (and here, punching faces) and using a range of abilities, most of which are unlocked as you progress through the game. Many moments require very precise manoeuvres and lightning reflexes. You will die often, and be thankful for checkpoints. Above all, you will have an enormous amount of fun during the ride.

To an extent, difficulty is dictated by how much content you want to experience in your first run through the game. Like any platformer worth its proverbial salt, there are collectibles; ‘Lums’, vaguely fairy-like creatures which hang in mid-air (sometime stationery, sometimes not). Grab a king Lum and, for a brief period, all other Lums turn red – doubling their value. Do you go for the highest Lum total you can manage in the level – usually meaning close encounters with invincible enemies and bottomless pits – or just grab what you can while making your way safely to the exit as soon as possible?

Lums, in turn, unlock Electoons (think Super Mario’s stars/shines). There are 246 of these in total, though only a relatively small number are required to unlock each world; and collecting a total of 200 will allow access to an extra eleven levels. Almost all levels have three Lum target numbers to achieve; the first two will give you one Electoon each, while the third will award you with a medal to look at. Each level is ended by freeing an Electoon from its cage, and there are hidden areas sprinkled throughout the game hiding extra Lums or cages; and once completed, each level has one last Electoon to surrender as a reward for a speedrun.

Ah, underwater sections. You were never allowed to make a platformer without them.

Though it works superbly as a singleplayer game, up to four of you can run, jump, glide, wallrun, and walljump your way through simultaneously; and, of course, stop to slap each other about should you feel the need. Extra players can certainly help during the side-scrolling shooter sections (which, incidentally, somehow fit in perfectly). There are extra characters to unlock but, as many are too similar and there is no coherent story within the game at all, it doesn’t act as much of an incentive.

You won’t much care who you’re playing as. Partly because you’ll be having too much fun and/or concentrating too hard on a particularly tricky section, but also because you’ll want to see how many industry references you can spot. There are subtle, never-intrusive nods in the level designs to Mario, Sonic, Angry Birds, Snake, Super Meat Boy, and doubtless many more we’ve missed. These tasteful homages go hand-in-hand with the intricacy of the graphical detail and the power of the soundtrack to create levels that look, sound, and feel alive. It’s so much more than idiot smiles and squeaky voices. Every single level is bursting with character, energy, and an utterly unique sense of self.

It is, sadly, not an endless parade of positives. Though it took us a respectable ten hours or so to run through the story, collecting roughly 60% of the Electoons along the way, it was mostly fairly easy to get through. That’s not necessarily a problem; the fact that the game occasionally leans too heavily on trial and error – particularly for the bosses and the final leg of the story – is. There’s nothing wrong with the time-honoured balancing act of quick reflexes and unexpected circumstances, but the ball is now and again dropped here.

Replay value is a thorny issue. Many (though not all) will happily work for and play the ten exhilarating, peril-laden chase levels that must be completed for the final hidden area; but only the most hardcore platformer freaks (or trophy/achievement addicts) will go through the same levels again and again until they have every last Electoon, medal and speed trophy.

Considering the tidal wave of price cuts due to lack of sales, this last is perhaps not an issue. If you loved the platformers of the nineties you’ll love this; and if you weren’t there for that era, perhaps Rayman Origins will make you regret the fact that you missed out.

Rainbow Six: Patriots flirted with Tom Clancy enthusiasts with a new trailer at the Spike Video Game Awards, showing off the explosive side of vengeance.

The trailer doesn’t give us any in-game footage, and instead features a group of gunmen capturing a CEO-like character before doing something particularly unpleasant.

Rainbow Six: Patriots is still some way off, with an ETA of 2013.

• Format: 360 (version reviewed), PS3, PC
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Ubisoft
• Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
• Players: 1 (4-8 online multiplayer)
• Site: http://www.assassinscreed.ubi.com/

The Assassin’s Creed franchise has remained consistently decent since the original game back in 2007, but once again rather than release a numbered sequel it has gone down the subtitle route with Revelations, following on from Brotherhood which in turn followed on from Assassin’s Creed 2.

Once again players take on the role of Desmond Miles, who himself takes on the role of ancestors who were prominent assassins during significant moments in history via the who-needs-laws-of-science Animus machine. Without going into too much detail regarding the ending to Brotherhood, Desmond was exposed to the machine too much and his mind began fragmenting, causing him to confuse himself with his ancestors; and this, coupled with some emotional events, resulted in him being stuck in a coma within the Animus. Revelations picks up with Desmond still trapped in the machine, his mind scheduled for deletion, with his only chance of escape being to sort through the last of his ancestors’ memories.

Where the first game only centred on Altair ibn La-Ahad during the Crusades, and the sequel and Brotherhood on Ezio Auditore de Firenze during the Renaissance, Revelations actually jumps between both ancestors to round off both stories (as well as interlocking plot points between them). Given the title of the game it might also be obvious that this tries to tie everything up, though actually all it really does is confirm logical conclusions reached after seeing Brotherhood’s ending.

The feeling of ‘been there, done that’ is hard to avoid this many games down the line when so little has changed. This doesn’t just apply to the plot (which, while decent enough, will leave you wishing that the bigger picture would be dealt with) but also to the most essential gameplay mechanics and even the returning multiplayer.

Ezio’s journey takes him to Constantinople in search of keys to unlock Altair’s library, as well as to assist the assassins there against Templars seeding descent in the Ottoman rule. Like previous games Ubisoft have taken just enough real historical events and twisted them ever so slightly to fit in their plot in an entirely believable way. While the change of setting from around Europe is nice, the game plays out exactly like the previous two, with Ezio’s missions rarely being anything you haven’t seen before. That isn’t to say they are bad, just not to be expecting anything as different as using Leonardo’s flying machine.

New to Ezio’s arsenal is the hook blade which lets him glide down convenient zip lines and also get a few more inches of reach for those especially long jumps. Also new is bomb crafting which promises dozens of different combinations – though we just stuck to the basic kinds and only used them when the mission dictated. This was down to a problem which has existed since the latter half of the second game – Ezio is just too powerful.

The chain-kill mechanic from Brotherhood returns where upon killing one guard, you can then continue to link instant kill attacks to any others around you as long as you take no damage. Even if you do take damage you can carry far too many medicines and they are far too easily replenished for free by searching dead guards. Couple this with the returning meta-game of finding and training new assassin recruits who you can call to aid you, and it removes a lot of the challenge. The only time we failed a mission was due to slightly vague instructions and boundaries, save perhaps restarting if you want to go for the optional 100% sync objective.

The final addition to singleplayer combat is another new meta-game which can be described as tower defence mixed with RTS elements. If you claim an area of the city and establish an assassin den it may be attacked by Templars. During these events you spend points which regenerate over time to place units of various classes to fight off waves of enemies. Generally these are also pretty easy, until the final enemy which will nearly always be a huge siege machine which takes about twice as long to die as it should.

Multiplayer returns and this time with a plot showing what the modern day Templars are up to while Desmond finishes his journey; playing as one while quickly climbing the ranks by using Animus collected data, to train to become just as potent a killer as an assassin. There are a handful of new maps but most are just borrowed from Brotherhood and most changes made to the abilities and mechanics by and large have made things worse. The biggest problem is an unfair advantage granted to people of a higher level than you and matchmaking is still painfully slow if you are part of a group. The only thing that will keep people playing is the story cutscenes unlocked at various levels.

The strongest feeling we had after finishing Revelations was that the series really needed to start doing something different. It’s a good game, but it’s the same thing for the third time in a row and it’s now showing its age and lack of creativity. The disappointment will only grow if, when Assassin’s Creed 3 is inevitably revealed, yet another excuse is found to go into the past of yet another ancestor when really the only thing that matters is the bigger picture in the modern day. If you are a long standing fan of the games by all means see how Altair and Ezio’s story ends; just don’t be expecting a fresh experience.

• Format: XBLA, PSN, PC
• Unleashed: Out Now (PSN and PC versions not yet released)
• Publisher: Ubisoft
• Developer: Ubisoft Mountpellier
• Players: 1
• Site: http://from-dust.ubi.com/from-dust/en-GB/home/

From Dust is a great big bundle of ambition. Its incredible use of physics presents the shifting ways of nature with an uncanny amount of believability, and the entire premise is filled with potential. It’s a shame that its creators had to turn it into a game.

A group of wayward tribesmen have awakened a strange entity known as the Breath, which you take control of right off the bat. You’ll hover around the mysterious lands in the form of a glowing cursor, camera far above, blessed with the gift of manipulating the elements. You can scoop up water, earth, and lava whenever you happen upon a source, morphing it into a sphere and spreading it wherever you wish. Instantly novel and impressive, simply rearranging the world to your liking is satisfying in its own right.

Finally, a decent sandcastle-building simulator.

Lumps of sand can be used to redirect rivers that slosh with startling realism and begin to flood the shore in real-time; lava will trickle from volcanoes, spreading with convincing movement and allowing you to build walls out of the quickly cooling molten rock. Before you know it, the entire landscape will have dynamically changed before your eyes, transforming beyond recognition in a matter of minutes. Interacting with it is stunning – but it’s not much of a video game on its own. That’s where the villagers come in.

You see, these fellows have a mission: build villages around totems scattered throughout the land and guard them until escaping via an underground passage. Guiding them from totem to totem (some of which grant abilities such as turning water to solids or increasing the amount of matter you can carry) provides a demanding goal on your part as you struggle to keep nature at bay. At best, the puzzle-like circumstances will invite creative tactics, whether you’re using water-filled fruit to put out fires or piling up mountains to fight back floods. It’s an awesome power trip to part the sea and drain the lakes to protect the defenceless people with your godlike powers. 

Oh, look, everything's on fire again. I'm just going to go shove the Xbox in a meat grinder, don't mind me.

At its worst, however, From Dust becomes a frustrating act of futility. The villagers have passable AI in general, and floating trails do wonders to let you know where they can and cannot go, but sometimes they just stand around like numbskulls for what appears to be no reason at all. While you’re frantically trying to adjust minute details in the ground to fix their “broken” bridge while a tsunami rages on the horizon, that power trip is wiped off the face of the earth like the villages you failed to save, forcing you to restart from scratch. To make matters worse, a boring cutscene must be endured every time you start over.

You certainly won’t play for the story, which mostly consists of rudimentary monologues about nature. By spreading plant life across the levels you can unlock Memories and challenge maps, the former of which turns out to be nothing more than dull pieces of lore with the latter being tasks that force even more specific requirements on you. The final level, interestingly enough, is at heart a sandbox that gives you total freedom and the power to shape the mountains themselves, which might have been a better route to take the whole product.

This is when From Dust is at its best: no villagers, lots of awe-inspiring scenery.

The trouble stems from the actual gameplay: it isn’t very good. From Dust’s strength lies in the glorious terrain-bending physics; not in fretting over a bunch of expendable inhabitants. Despite the beautiful presentation and (at times) fascinating situations, the game stumbles over contrived mechanics and aggravating unpredictability. Factoring in the steep price point, consider putting a toe in the water before getting swept up in the tide.

We’ve got several big FPS fans here at Critical Gamer. Some of those very same people love sandbox gameplay and beautiful environments… so naturally, we love the Far Cry games here. The video above shows an alternate way to play through the level showcased at E3. By and large, it looks like more of the same in Far Cry 3… but you won’t hear us complaining.

The original Driver was a classic and, despite some graphics that look creaky in 2011, still plays great. Driver 2 was good too, but far from the giddy heights of the original. Driver 3, or Driv3r, or Dr1v3r, or whatever the hell it was called… the less said about that, the better.

This new trailer doesn’t give much away, but it certainly tickles our retro glands. Irresistibly cheesy ’70s style soundtrack? Over a hundred licensed cars from at least four different decades? San Francisco to drive and jump around in? Yes please. Want. Now.

And finally, a brief developer diary from the team behind intriguing god game From Dust. Well, it says developer diary, but it’s basically a three minute trailer. Mind you, it does show you the fact that you’re set to be a god who can roll huge balls of lava around, and you can only get even more powerful. Who doesn’t like the sound of that? FEAR US, MORTALS! Um, we mean, could be one to watch.

Impressive as the Kinect tech is, the device isn’t exactly drowning in hardcore games. As a result, many core gamers are sitting on the fence when it comes to buying one; or often, they’re camped out so far on the side of not getting one, they can’t even see the fence. With the PS3 version delayed till September, could Ubisoft’s Child of Eden be the game to change that?

If you can get to Dean Street in London between now (or the 5th of June if you can travel back and forth through time at will) and the 20th June, you can try the game out and make your own mind up. Just like the (ahem) celebrities above! In that there video, you can catch brief glimpses of Dextah Fletchah, Iaiaiain Lee, and Jonathan ‘Wossy’ Woss (looking like a tramp who’s stolen a suit). The video even opens with The Japanese Popstars (us neither) chatting about the game.

Dates and full address for The Child of Eden experience appear at the end of the video, and also on the inevitable Facebook page. This is one promo event we’d happily recommend you find some time for; if you do, feel free to come back and let us know what you think.

Nothing but the videos, baby.

And of course…

Ubisoft Conference: June 6^th 10:30pm GMT

Here we go with Ubisoft. We already know about Assassin’s Creed Revelations, but what else will they have? E3 2010 saw them largely focus on fitness and dancing – hopefully they will have learned their lesson since then. Oh and the horrible comedian and that weird laser-tag thing. Let’s try to forget all that.

• Show begins with a video showing 25 years of Ubisoft.
• CEO Yves Guillemot takes to the stage to once again attempt English. Starts showing off total game sales over the years, links back to starting with Rayman and thanks the crowd.
• Yves brings Michel Angel to the stage to talk about Rayman Origins. He also attempts English…then some horrible back and fourth with Yves.
• The on-stage demo of the game begins. Apparently the demo is hard to play. They are playing co-op. Has a very old school charm to its style. Tetris music + in-game joke meets my approval.
• An underwater section is next, they are being chased by a very strange looking creature.
• A snow section is next mixed with aerial combat, I wonder if they are picking stereotypical annoying environments from most games on purpose? Demo ends with a very awkward joke that fails to land in the cinema.
• Aaron Priceman takes the stage. Mister Caffeine? Oh, he’s quite hyper. I’m going to hate this individual.
• Yes, let’s all talk about the 80s. And make fun of Charlie Sheen. That’s modern! Please stop talking Aaron. No. That wasn’t funny. Nor was that. Or that. Shut up, Aaron.
• Gaming is adventure. He’s talking so fast I’m losing the will to listen to him. I still don’t know which game he’s talking about. Get on with it!
• A trailer starts retro style. Ah, it’s Driver. Driver San Francisco. He mentions a game changing twist. Trailer seemed to skip a little at one point, don’t think it was on purpose. Either way it isn’t actual gameplay.
• I just noticed that Aaron’s microphone is quite large. Another reason to hate him.
• From Ubisoft Montreal Dan Hay and Jamie Keen take the stage. You are Jason Broady. That’s good to know. After that confusing introduction a trailer begins for what I’m guessing is a new Farcry.
• We get to listen to a very foul-mouthed evil person whine on and on about being evil. Then our hero escapes and also swears a bit. How edgy. Now he’s acquired a weapon.
• Some general exploration mixed with gun play and rather brutal knife kills. Then things start exploding and get rather fast-paced. The visuals for the most part are particularly nice, especially given it’s a console he’s playing it on. I wouldn’t want to be Jason Broady, he has a bit habit of running into nut cases.
• Closes on Farcry 3 title, coming 2012.
• The irritating Aaron is back to announce Randy Pitchford from Gearbox. He’s here to talk about Brothers in Arms games. He says they were challenged to make a new take on WW2 games, because the world needs more of those. It’s about “kicking Nazi ass”, they’ve clearly made some innovations here.
• A trailer about the ‘furious four’ plays. Seems you get to play as one of four stereotypical gits in a very action focused game that doesn’t look very good at all.
• Aaron is back. Apparently marriage is next. The one between gaming and Hollywood. A trailer plays. Steven Spielberg talks about Tintin. If anyone asks the point at which I lost interest in this trailer – that was it.
• I don’t know about you but what makes a trailer for me is two old guys talking for about five minutes on a subject they know nothing about. To be fair, afterwards they did show some real gameplay. Not good gameplay, but you know. The Adventures of Tintin The Game, coming soon.
• Aaron is talking about Ghost Recon now. More bad jokes. Where are you, snipers? An old school style trailer plays, guessing it will then advance and show proper Ghost action.
• Yup, Tommy Jacob and Roman Oriola take the stage to talk about Future Soldier. It’ll be on the floor playable for the crowds. An on stage demo then begins.
• Swampy village type area, the Ghost team wading through it. It’s a stage set in Nigeria. The team activates camo suits. That’s cheating a bit, isn’t it? A saved civilian doesn’t seem phased by stealth suit using Americans. It is revealed that it isn’t just one person playing, it’s four of them.
• The fire fights that follow aren’t as impressive as the coordinated stealth sections. Some kind of overhead map section is next, plotting out route and area before they begin moving through it.
• All four players using active camo in this section to take down various targets. Doesn’t seem to be any limit on the camo, even when ‘spotted’ to a certain degree. Things go loud again. For the most part the gameplay seems solid, getting together four people to play it looks like a lot of fun. No date given for release. Version played was Xbox. Multiplayer will be playable on the E3 floor.
• There’s talk next about PC. Ubisoft Singapore will be making a Ghost Recon Online, a PC game and it’s “absolutely free”. Looks much simpler but does incorporate the advanced technology. Free to play and applications for the Beta can be put in now.
• Tommy – don’t clap your own game. It’s bad form.
• Sadly, Aaron is back yet again. “More and more of gaming, is sharing” – really? Epic fail on the epic fail joke.
• Two people with names so complicated I will not insult them by trying to spell them here take the stage from Nadeo Publishing. They are here to chat about Trackmania 2 for PC.
• About three minutes in I’m still not quite sure what they are talking about, but hopefully this video will keep things nice and simple. The video shows some player made maps. Most fairly extreme and some roller-coaster style. Shootmania, Questmania…ah yes I remember this stuff from last year now. Still as confusing now as it was then and very, very strange.
• Aaron mentioned rabbits. Getting a bit sick of those. The way he described them is exactly how I’d describe him. Antoine Henry is on to blather away about the annoying rabbits, for Kinect.
• Pro-tip Ubisoft: if you’re going to make a pretend sitting room set to show off a Kinect game, make it a realistic size. Apparently four people can play it at the same time. Really? Oh wait they’re going to try it. Someone better injure themselves or it won’t be a genuine multiplayer Kinect experience.
• If for whatever reason you wanted your friends to see you pull stupid poses, Kinect Rabbits let you upload to Facebook and so on.
• Aaron is back, trying to draw attention away from people in the background altering the set. He’s talking about fear. Being locked in a room with him for an hour would scare me. He’s talking about pulling people from the audience to dance. Another retro video playing showing 8-bit dancing.
• Just Dance 3. Quickly moving on…nope, awful advert first.
• Tony Key takes the stage. Sadly he’s talking about Just Dance some more. He quickly moves on though to talk about Rocksmith. It’s a good job no one else has made a guitar simulation game. Oh wait.
• Video plays. It seems that it uses essentially a real guitar, sort of. It might be better than those other franchises if it really teaches guitar actually, a fun way to get around the tedium when you start. Coming Fall 2011.
• The next subject is…fitness. You learned nothing from last year! Your Shape Evolved. A video plays of people who don’t at all look stupid bouncing around. Out later this year.
• Aaron blathers on and then there’s a retro style Assassin’s Creed video.
• Assassin’s Creed Revelations. Alexandre Amancio and Martin Schelling take the stage to talk about the game. After a bit of chatting it’s straight into a trailer. After a lovely CG battle it looks like Ezio is caught and marched off to be hanged, all the while seeing Altair’s ghost.
• The E3 gameplay demo then begins. The first new thing shown off is area-of-effect bombs. Then it’s straight into combat briefly. Next is line grappling and then more fighting. Next he mounts a flame-thrower for a while before an escape sequence across burning ships. His own fault for setting them alight really. Demo ends with Animus related footage and then a mysterious glowing door. Released this November.
• Aaron is back to finish the show. Last chance to do something about him, snipers.

No real surprises here, but that isn’t to say Ubisoft disappointed. The absence of anything Splinter Cell was interesting. Ghost Recon, Farcry 3 and Revelations look good.

If you like your turn based role-playing strategy games splashed with a liberal coating of cartoon stylised graphics then Ubisoft have got a treat for you.

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes was released on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network this week, and if you are unaware of the title then please throw your eyes to the video embedded in this story.

Gameplay looks to be a mix between your standard RPG roaming affair and a turn based game of ‘crush the enemy forces’, punctuated with cartoon action sequences that wouldn’t look out of place in a fantasy anime series.

You can pull the game down your Internet pipes now on the console of your choice for 1200 MS points or £11.99.

• Format: Nintendo 3DS
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Ubisoft
• Developer: Gameloft
• Players: 1-4
• Site: http://www.ubisoft.com

When it comes to supporting Nintendo hardware launches you can be sure Ubisoft will deliver. Generally though, what they deliver is the console gaming equivalent of Gameloft’s attempts to bring cheap versions of AAA games to phones and mobile devices. In screenshots it can look the part, yet when used in the wild you realise why the real thing really is better. The Irony with Asphalt 3D is that Ubisoft really are bringing Gameloft’s attempt at a AAA game as this is developed by them!

Asphalt is a driving game which has its roots on the iPhone, however it also has roots on the DS. One of the original DS launch window games was a previous version of Asphalt, and one of the first DSiWare games was also an Asphalt title. The game is a mix between Burnout and Ridge Racer, having you win races, time trials and other alternative racing challenges to progress and improve your career. Asphalt has a ton of licensed vehicles and you can unlock and purchase a huge number of upgrades.

Some of these upgrades seem to make a difference, others though make none and are a waste of time to implement. The cars themselves don’t handle that differently, with the real difference being leaps in speed (noticeable between the basic cars and the super cars) and perhaps some road grip.

One for the school run, obviously.

Road grip though is not really required in Asphalt as you can literally bump along the side of the road without being punished too much. Realistic physics have never been part Asphalt’s reputation and this 3DS version is not going to change that any time soon. Hit an oncoming vehicle though, something you will do often as you can’t see them until the collision, and it can mean the end of finishing the race in a meaningful position. Oncoming vehicles are to Asphalt what Blue Shells are to Mario Kart.

The game has a drifting mechanic which is laughable. You apply the breaks to drift and the car will snap into a drift ‘angle’ and then when you come out of it, the car just snaps back to how it should be. No smooth animation or any real feeling of actually drifting. None at all. This is to be expected with Asphalt, but one feels that this release was an opportunity for Ubisoft to raise the game’s production value and make the franchise a credible racer.

The 3D is pleasing, as are the graphics in general when the game is stationary – but when moving along (something usually expected of a racing game) general frame rate is poor, with whole frames missing when the car does a flying stunt. This feels like a port which has not been optimised for the hardware. Regarding the 3D in more detail, the sense of depth does add to the experience for overtaking and cornering but we feel more could have been made of it. It all feels a little bit ‘slapped on’.

The game offers local multiplayer (online would have been nice), career mode, free race mode and ‘Spot Pass’ implementation which we were not able to test.

We feel that with the 3DS E-Shop launching in May this would have made a better digital launch title with a price nearer to £3-£8 rather than the £35 you will find it in the shops for. If you want a colourful, simple racer for wasting a few moments here and there, wait a few months until this game starts being discounted as it surely will be. It is colourful and if you don’t take it seriously it can be fun but it does nothing to justify it’s price or justify buying a 3DS. If you want the real thing, buy Ridge Racer at launch or even better still wait till the games actually built for the platform get a release later this year.