Rally Stars 3D

It's fair to say there's no shortage of rally games on mobile. And - with titles like World Rally Championship and the recently-reviewed Rally Master Pro - there's no shortage of good ones either. The competition is pretty stiff when it comes to making games about cars and mud.

But that hasn't deterred EA from coming up with Rally Stars 3D. Which - going on the facts - isn't a game that offers much more than the norm. It's got four cars, six tournaments, 18 tracks and a Quick Race mode. But it's how it delivers them that counts, and Rally Stars does so very slickly.

There's more depth to this game than most right from the start, thanks to the fact your car doesn't just auto-accelerate its way to the finishing line like most mobile racing games. Instead you shift gears up and down, which - in turn - controls the speed of your rally ride.

So on straights you make sure you're cruising along in sixth gear and for tighter corners it's a good idea to shift down to fifth or fourth unless you want to bounce around them, losing speed as you go.

There's also a generous number of tracks in the game. 18 in total spaced over six championships which get progressively harder. To unlock each subsequent tournament, you need to earn enough points by finishing mainly first and second in each race against your three AI opponents.

The environments these tracks are set in vary, but EA takes quite a few liberties on what rally driving is by situating them on beaches and cities alongside muddy forests. Not that it matters because they all look great, with full 3D backgrounds and detail that goes right down to photographers flashing cameras as you drive past.

You can't actually venture off the track, despite it looking like you can. Instead you bounce off invisible walls. But it's maybe a bit much to ask to be able to career off wherever you like.

Also, having just played the brilliant Rally Master Pro and had the luxury of the voice of a proper co-driver, it's a bit disappointing to go back to the standard arrow on the screen warning you of upcoming bends and hazards.

Despite the game instructions saying the arrow gives you hints on how to take corners too, its colour doesn't seem to have any bearing on whether you're going too fast or slow- advice which would have been handy.

These are minor omissions, though, and overall Rally Stars packs a lot in. Car handling is superb and the game's four unlockable cars all handle very differently.

The challenge of the Championship mode is pretty steep so you'll be playing it for some time. And - if you get bored with straightforward racing - you can play the Endurance mode, which is simply a checkpoint survival race where you need to hit each checkpoint before the timer reaches zero.

There might be a lot of rally games already out there, but Rally Stars is a welcome addition. It's not quite as slick and feature-packed as Rally Master Pro, but it comes in as a worthy second place competitor.