When it was announced that the Xbox was getting a Road Rage title, it brought memories flooding back of bikers and their machines laid out on the floor, I had the best fun playing the original game on the Mega Drive. 26 year later, could Maximum Games reignite my live for the game? In truth, not really, though it’s not all bad.

Let’s start with the story. Apparently the world has gone to pot, civilisation has fought back against greedy corporations and now the city of Ashen is now run by gangs of bikers, you happen to play one of them. One of the first things you’ll be involved in is a race, once that has been completed you receive a phone call for the next event, this keeps happening until the world suddenly becomes populated with things to do.

This is one of Road Rage’s plus points, there is plenty of variety to keep you interested. Stunt races were a particular favourite, as were the assassination races, where you are given a target to hunt down and kill. There are checkpoint, elimination and arcade races too, so you are never without something else to try. Winning races earns you cash and the ability to purchase upgrades to your bike and weapons, you can also buy brand new bikes if you wish. Over time you’ll need to buy new machines as some races have requirements for a particular bike. There are some awesome weapons to get hold of including Golf Clubs, Chains and Iron Bars.

But what are the bikes like to drive? I found the bike handling a little odd at first, I didn’t get a real sense of being on the road, it was more like I was skating. Crashing was inconsistent, one minute you could hit a car full on and be fine but clipping a car would send you flying down the road. There were a few occasions where the you would literally slide for 5 to 6 city block before the game would respawn you! 

Driving against the AI was quite good, although most of the time you would beat them easily, they were competitive and you always felt like you were in a race. It was good fun battling against them to try and knock them off their bikes. One of the achievements in the game is to knock down pedestrians with your weapons, its quite amusing to drive on the pavement and watch in slow motion as you swing and send an innocent bystander flying with a bat to back back.

I was pleasantly surprised how how good the game looks, although the city itself is fairly bland, there are some great lighting effects, which make the bikes and their riders look excellent, it’s let down by the the poor mobile phone graphics and the map which is a pain to navigate.

Road Rage is not going to be grabbing any game awards any time soon, but if you want a bike games with a little bit of an edge to it, Road Rage can certainly fill that gap.

Thanks to Dead Good Media for supporting TiX