Bumper Car City

Bumper cars (or dodgems, depending on what you prefer to call them) have always had a lasting appeal for us. You can go through phases with other fairground rides, see.

Take the waltzers – being spun around until your head is stuck to the seat is fun some times, vomit-inducing others. Or sitting in a creaky big wheel with just a bar between you and a 30-metre drop, which is fine when you're a kid but slightly more terrifying as an adult who's watched the YouTube clips of people falling out of them.

But dodgems are good, clean fun. Our only disappointment is those where you get a man who stands in the middle and tells you off for driving the wrong way or bumping people. Surely that just defeats the purpose of placing a group of rubber-bumpered vehicle within a confined space?

Bumper Car City fortunately has no such rules. Playing as a different character in each level – characters with amusing names such as Captain Smash and Chief Collision – you're free to drive around the city streets, bashing into as many bumper car drivers as you please.

In fact, it's encouraged. Bump someone enough to drain their entire energy bar, and they'll drop an icon. Depending on the icon they have, you get to play a retrospective mini-game – one of many in the game, all of which involve even more bumping. Genius.

Your overriding goal for all of this is to win votes from the citizens of Bumper Car City. Seeing as they live where they do, it shouldn't surprise you to learn these people can be impressed into voting for you by showcasing your driving and crashing skills.

The longer you last, or more objectives you fulfill in each mini-game, the more of their votes you secure.

There are all sorts of games to play: in Battle, you must smash into each highlighted car in turn; Hold, meanwhile, sees you trying to keep a star for as long as possible while avoiding having it nicked by the the other car drivers; and Race is a straightforward little checkpoint race.

Some are better than others. Escape, for instance – where you evade the other cars chasing you – is annoying because the cars randomly generate right in front of you, making it impossible at times to avoid driving into them. Conversely, Collect (a game which involves finding and collecting traffic cones) is a more addictive challenge.

We have to give Bumper Car City some praise for being so simple to play, yet still emerging as a fully-fledged game. By simple, we mean it uses two buttons to play – left and right – to steer your car. Acceleration is done automatically and there's no need for a brake – you can just bounce off things.

Okay, there is a third button, but it's used to change the radio station you're listening to. It's hardly of Grand Theft Auto quality, but there are some quirky little tunes and it's a pleasant inclusion to be able to change the music in a mobile game.

You might be wondering where the actual challenge is in a game where you can't crash and die. Well, it's in the time limit. Or, to be more precise, the amount of charge you have in your bumper car's battery.

Batteries can be collected as you drive, which give you a few seconds' extra longevity, but collecting the 50 votes needed to win is always a tight task. There are various power-ups that do all manner of things to other cars, such as electocute them or put them in a spin, but they are mostly unspectacular.

Overall, though, it's all very cheery, simple and varied. It's also playable by any age group – there's a challenge, but you can keep progressing to the next randomly generated level without actually beating its predecessor.

However, it's also just not that exciting. Eventually, bumping about in identikit fluffy cities, repeating the same mini-games, gets mind-numbing. At best it'll make you yearn for a spot of real bumper car driving, complete with the mighty crunches, whiplash and excitement Bumper Car City ultimately can't deliver.