Mashed review

No, that’s not a roof rack.

It’s been a while since the golden days of ‘top-down’ racing and the undisputed champion of the genre: Micro Machines. Of course, the mainstay of Mega Drive racing did make a multi-format comeback a short while ago – gameplay present but magic, rather less so. So here’s a contender, and one with some Micro Machines heritage to boot.

The basic premise of Mashed runs in a very similar vein to its ‘predecessor’. It involves no holds barred racing along a range of unconventional tracks, although none that actually involve giant teacups and the like. Along with this there are, of course, varied and colourful powerups to help you gain more trophies for your mantelpiece as well as to inflict a fiery demise on your opponents.

Micro Machines with a vengeance

It’s not the M25, but it is good fun.

As you’ve probably guessed by this point, this game revolves, in a big way, around that magical word that exists only in gaming circles and is underlined in a charming shade of red by a certain office program: gameplay.

But that’s good. Mashed positively excels in this area. Within the game there are three modes of play. ‘Battle’ sees you racing around the track, unleashing your weapons on competitors as you play in the hope that you’ll be either the last car left on the track or the one that gets a set distance in front of the others first.

Also included is one of those, ‘hold on to the flag games’, where it appears that you need to steal the flag from your opponent, or keep hold of it before trying to out race them. ‘Fugitive’ is somewhat bizarre and, from what can be understand of it, requires you to crash into the appointed fugitive whilst adorned with a blue, police-style flashing light.

Good things come in small packages

Things become a little more tricky when ice is involved.

It’s been a long time since we last encountered a blue PlayStation 2 disc – you know, the ones that aren’t DVDs and are actually CDs. Indeed, we thought we’d seen the last of ‘em. However Mashed sports a blue behind, and for a reason.

Mashed is not the most graphically jazzed up of games. That is not to say that it is lacking in the visual stakes – it is simple but that’s no problem. The camera remains fairly distant, allowing all the unfurling action to be seen. Vitally it also cuts out the need for split-screen, something that would adversely affect gameplay in this instance. With respect to the game’s visuals, it means that things can be pleasing on the eye, without being massively detailed close-up.

The fact that all these splendid graphics do their job without consuming huge amounts of storage media is shown by the fact that it is on a rather handsome, blue disc with a far smaller amount of disc space. Whoever said we weren’t a scientific bunch?

Separate friend from foe

Not especially detailed, but entirely adequate.

If you’ve got any of those ‘friend’ things they talk about out there, in the real world you’ll find that Mashed is as good a reason as any to fire up the Multitap, or just the number two controller, and get multiplaying.

Playing the AI cars, either all on all, or you versus all, is enjoyable and, when playing on the Challenge mode, you’ll be able to unlock plenty more tracks and cars, each with their own individual features and characteristics. The artificial intelligence is pretty adept at both racing and destroying you (you’ll find that you destroy yourself all too often though), however, rival cars do have a tendency to steer you, and themselves, into the wall on occasion.

On occasion, the AI seems just a little too good, and things get frustrating – rival cars seem to be able to catch up a little too easily sometimes. This is one game you might find yourself falling out with big style for an hour or so. Then you’ll come back for more. To put a witty spin on a famous slogan – ‘once you launch a mortar at a rival car you just can’t stop’.

Long live the King!

See? Gameplay really is more important than graphics.

By unlocking new tracks, cars and game modes for them, you’re only really building up for a good ol’ multiplayer game. One senses that once you’ve completed the single player game, which won’t take you long, replay value might be a little limited.

If you opt for the multiplayer route, you’ll be kept playing for a fair while. Just take note that, once you’ve unleashed an air-strike on your chum for the umpteenth time (an option after you’ve been knocked off the track) things might get a tad more heated than you’d expected. You never know, they might also return the favour.

What is certain is that Mashed is a simple, well put together and addictive piece of gaming goodness. There’s a little Trackmania in there, a little Micro Machines and we’ll probably be told that there’s a little Manhunt in there too at some point. After all, calling someone a ‘Crankshaft’ or ‘Myopic Lemur’ (triggered with a button press) is likely to spread. Let’s just hope that this escapes the great game ban of 2004.

(If you want to try the PC version of the game, we recommend these two Mashed demos zipped into one file, ed.)