Extreme Motocross Racing

On paper, Extreme Motocross Racing should be something rather special. Like the Burnout of the Motocross world, at its hands are bevy of power-ups and bonuses that can both cut your opponents down and level the playing field.

Coupled with the sheer spectacle of soaring over the lumps and bumps of a muddy motocross track, Bravo's eight-way contest is surely onto a good thing.

Slinging the mud

However, actually making the bike beneath your feet move with any sense of fluidity – or, indeed, simply making it drivable at all – seems to have slipped the developer's mind. And that's one rather large slip up to make.

With the camera pitched above giving the game an almost isometric viewpoint, your only job in standard races is to guide your bike around (acceleration is taken care of, though this – and the slow-mo mode that helps you take corners – can be switched off) using the number keys to prompt your steering.

It's essentially a game that focuses on running a clean race, your fellow riders doing little more than acting as markers that track your progress.

Things change, however, when said drones manage to make their presence known. Any contact with your rivals almost always leads to your bike being spun around in the wrong direction or, in a worst case scenario, your rider being kicked off his ride altogether.

Given that doing so throws you back into the pack, any contact with any part of the track can completely ruin your race, chucking you into a mire you'll more than likely emerge from in last place.

Collision course

As such, avoiding tussles with fellow riders becomes a must, but it's made especially tricky in most races due to a strange case of slowdown that grips the game whenever the action hots up.

The aforementioned glitch gives you virtually no opportunity to react: races are often wrecked simply because Extreme Motocross Racing packs its racers in and then undermines any input you might make in response by, for want of a better word, crashing.

Should you get lucky, however, and steer a safe path for yourself through such calamity, waiting for you at the other end are the same courses in Arcade mode, this time decorated with power-ups aplenty.

The ability to equip yourself with a shield or increase your speed does not, overnight, an amazing experience make, but it does at least give Extreme Motocross Racing a sense of character that extends beyond the largely broken nature of its standard contests.