Race Driver: Create & Race

"Driving games are like wasps. You can go for ages without seeing one, and then a thousand million turn up at once. That's how it feels right now, anyway. The last few months have offered PGR4, Sega Rally, Juiced 2, Forza 2, DiRT, Flatout: Ultimate Carnage, while shiny new models of Need For Speed, Burnout and Gran Turismo rev their engines, and rattle their stupidly wide exhaust pipes in the garage, waiting to join the scrum. What does it take to stand out in such an unseemly morass of speeding metal?"

"Fans of racing games finally have a game other than Mario Kart DS to play on the Nintendo DS. The online play will keep you coming back, yet the single-player experience is just as solid and far deeper. Finally, a racing game with a workable track editor. The fact that you can use them online is even more impressive. The graphics far exceed what you would expect from the Nintendo DS. Race Driver: Create & Race beat my expectations considerably."

Race Driver pushes the DS hardware to its limits, and the result is a deep and enjoyable racing game.

At first Race and Create seems like a bit of a let down because the handling doesn’t seem quite right and the lack of arrows to indicate when turns are coming up is frustrating. However, with a little more practice as you race through championships, the more positive aspects of the game start to shine, including a decent sense of speed thanks to the 60fps and plenty of single-player options. But the star of the show is certainly the Track Designer, which is incredibly in-depth, while still being extremely flexible and simple to use. It adds an enormous amount of longevity to a package that’s already bursting with modes and unlockables.