Paris-Dakar Rally

Take a look at the system requirements for this game. Now take a look at the graphics. Now stop laughing, because they are actually the right ones. Add to these bland visuals a feeble licence that no one cares about, apart from about three people, and you're left with yet another sub-standard and mind-liquifyingly dull arcade racing game that only about two people will care about.

But fortunately, it's not all bad. You get to race one of four (yes count 'em, four) different vehicles around the drab, near identical-looking tracks, each of which has a selection of varying-quality alternatives which are unlocked as you master certain stages. While hardly accurate, at least a token effort has been made to give each one (a 4x4, motorbike, buggy and quad bike) separate handling, and your co-pilot's (space permitting) directions are vaguely accurate if often incomprehensible.

Before each race, you get to customise your car, with suspension, shocks, ride height, gearbox and tyre pressure all tweakable, although your choices for each are kept to a bare minimum. Once you've messed around with your car set up, navigated your way through the clumsy menus and switched off the irritating music and actually started racing, you soon realise just how basic the whole thing is. Much of the scenery is in 2D, while the backdrops make the dirt tracks you're racing on look visually stimulating. There's very little variation, very little entertainment and very little to get excited about, but at least you can console yourself with the fact that it'll take you a fair while before you've cracked it, and the fact that there are four vehicle types to master, which is more than can be said for the majority of PC-based arcade racers.