Burnout

Burnout? On a phone? It'll never work.

Not because mobiles aren't capable of handling a decent 3D console racing game (hello Project Gotham Racing and Need For Speed Carbon). But because Burnout's popularity is specifically down to stuff that phones can't do properly.

You know the stuff: shedloads of other cars to weave in and out of on the roads; great big splintery crashes with proper physics; eye-popping motion blur. Your phone can't cope with them. Not yet, anyway.

In other words, bringing Burnout to mobile is a ridiculous idea.

Or is it? See, EA Mobile has clearly realised all this, but rather than put mobile Burnout on the back burner until handsets are up to the task of an accurate conversion, instead it's come up with an entirely new and tightly-focused game to work around the restrictions of mobile.

And you know what? It's great.

So, out goes the behind-the-car camera in favour of a top-down viewpoint (albeit with 3D elements on whizzier handsets). Out go standard races in favour of a duel-based mission structure where you're competing against one other car. And out go, er, any curves in the road at all, replaced by very long very straight freeways to tear along at top speed.

The game's World Tour mode is divided between three locations – Angel Valley, Silver Lake and Eternal City – which have eight, five and five missions respectively. There are four types of missions, too.

One sees you having to dominate a target circle in the centre of the road for longer than your rival ( i.e. shunt them out of it). Another requires you to take opponents down or slam them off the road ten times, as quickly as possible (complete with a 'Sumo!' message whenever you do the latter).

The third type has you slamming into as much traffic as possible in 60 seconds while trying not to get smashed by trucks, whereas the final example asks you to survive for as long as possible without being taken down by your opponent.

While racing, you build up a boost bar which can be used by pressing the '5' key, and there are also power-ups to collect that repair your car, supercharge its speed, or make you invulnerable for five seconds.

Completing each mission earns you a gold, silver or bronze medal, while you're also given a one- to five-star rating for the aggressiveness of your driving.

Both of these elements provide an incentive to replay missions later, with the star rating taking a leaf out of RealArcade and Digital Chocolate's book. You also unlock a new car for each location but although they claim different specs, the most noticeable difference is the colours, if we're honest.

Nevertheless, Burnout is great, something we didn't expect to say that when we first clapped eyes on it, given all our expectations. But the fact that the gameplay has been focused down on two-car duels ended up holding our attention, thanks to the problem-solving aspects of the individual missions (for example, refining our strategy for braking, switching lanes and then ramming our opponent off the road in the sumo missions).

The top-down graphics look good, and there's even the trademark post-crash motion blur, although to be honest it's a bit annoying after the first few times – the fact EA has included an option to turn it off in the settings hints that it may know this.

Clearly, there's an expectation barrier to surmount, and it's fair to say that some of Burnout's biggest fans on console might be disappointed by the gap between console and this mobile version.

However, judged purely as a mobile game, it definitely brings something different – and much welcomed – to the racing genre, with a well-tuned effort making the most of mobile's restrictions to create something extremely playable and fun.