Altitude

Well, Colour Me tickled pink and more than mildly surprised. I have to say I wasn't expecting anything other than some tosspiece indie game with some grand idea but flaccid gameplay creakily holding the whole thing up. Thankfully, there's no sagging game flesh hanging off this robust gaming torso. It's a fighting fit machine, the gaming eguivalent of a training montage in an '80s action film.

Imagine an airborne version of the original Micro Machines games, cuddly little vehicles chugging about the place, except this time it's a fight to the death. This game has various regular and team-based deathmatch games, a baseattack mode, and even a Robot Wars-esque football game, where you have to collect a ball and fire it into the opposition's goal.

Altitude's controls are simple and intuitive. Use the arrow keys to move your plane about and accelerate/ decelerate, while pressing F,D and S fire weapons of varying description. Experience can be earned and levels can be gained, as is the case in every game nowadays. As you progress, new unlocks appear and various new planes appear for selection. Levelling up is relatively quick and it shouldn't take you too long at all to get the first couple of planes unlocked.

The core of the game, unless you prefer bots, is played online against other humans, who'll generally be miles better than you. It doesn't seem to matter in this game, though, because you always have a feeling of "ah well, it's just a game" instead of the tonguechewing rage of more serious titles. The only flaws I can really point to are that Altitude has a simple premise . and often such ideas have a short shelf life (though clearly not always).

Stalling can be frustrating in certain low-lying areas too, as you might not actually be able to escape, but these are minor niggles. It's a great little indie game, it's cheap and you really should play it.