Motocross Maniacs Advance

If you've been a Game Boy player since 1989, chances are you've already experienced this franchise once or twice in the past decade. All you really do is drive from left to right, using the odd nitro-boost and doing a bunch of jumps and loop-de-loops on your way to the finish line. At least, that's how it used to be. With MM Advance, you now have to worry about firing various weapons at your opponents and even avoiding oddly placed obstacles like octopi and dogs on each track. Since the game moves pretty fast and the screen is so small, seeing these obstacles in time to jump or break them eventually becomes a big problem. It doesn't help that winning usually comes down to who can hit the boost button the fastest, since there's really no shortage of nitro for anyone in the race. I will give Konami some credit for adding a few minigames to the package this time around in the name of replay value, but they're uninspired at best. Motocross Maniacs is fun for about an hour, and after that I doubt you'll ever pick it up again.