Extreme Formula

When you fantasise about the cars of tomorrow, what sort of neat gadgets, awesome features and futuristic add-ons do you hope for?

A greener fuel source would be nice to stop planet Earth from becoming a shriveled, dry husk. How about ditching the wheels and using anti-gravity pads to make cornering graceful, and parallel parking effortless?

Well forget that nonsense, because Extreme Formula is all about gratuitous speed. To the surprising detriment of gameplay, this high speed racer puts too much emphasis on breakneck, white-knuckle velocity.

The game’s core mechanics revolve around two different speed boosts - normal and hyper - which must be carefully juggled in order to maintain ridiculous non-stop speed.

Normal speed boost lets you zoom past the competition, but your car slowly overheats with extended use until it explodes. You need to keep a close eye on the gauge as a result, judiciously nursing it and shutting it down just before your car reaches boiling point. Additionally, there are ice cubes that you can pick up to cool your engine down.

There’s also the hyper gauge, a blue bar that slowly fills up over time (and leaps up in hefty increments if you drive over a green gem). Flip that switch and you boost non-stop for a good few seconds, emitting a toxic blue trail of nitrous gas as you bat around the futuristic tracks.

Unfortunately, at such extreme velocities, the controls rarely hold up. They’re competent at normal cruising speed, but as soon you start using your boosters any hope of a perfect lap is lost.

Whether using the accelerometer or touch controls, turning is slow and the drift too sharp. I constantly found myself pinging off corners, denting my fenders on harsh turns and, sometimes, juddering to a complete stop as my car got stuck in the game’s geometry.

And it’s not just about avoiding the sides and other players. Every level is an obstacle course. There are poisonous black gems that will instantly wreck your car and massive magnetic anomalies that vaguely hover around the track and shut down your electronics if you get too close. A constant barrage of stops, stutters and dented cars is pretty much the order of the day.

It's not just the gameplay that developer GOGN Entertainment mangled. There are plenty of other problems with the game.

There are the buttons that - frustratingly enough - need to be tapped 15 times before they activate. There are constant sign-in problems with Apple’s Game Center and you can’t play Career mode if you’re offline.

Beyond the technical demerits, Extreme Formula is just a generic, paint-by-the-numbers racer with no soul. Despite its robust customisation options, lengthy Career mode, and online multiplayer, the game is rendered a wreck due to unreliable controls and numerous bugs.

When Sony’s WipEout imagined the future of motorsports it saw sleek and sexy vehicles, neon lit tracks and a backing anthem of Britain’s best electronica. Extreme Formula depicts a sad future with clunky motors, gross wastelands and generic dance beats.