9 / 10
score
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Way back in the before times, there was an arcade game called Sprint, which was later followed by Super Sprint (and many other clones), because back then in the land of the 8 bit most racing games were a top down affair. Sure you had your Pole Positions, but the real multi-player fun came from an aerial view of the track, big steering wheels and mad carnage.

Later on Spy Hunter introduced scrolling, and the Amiga brought us multi-way scrolling with the likes of Super Cars and Nitro, whilst other machines introduced variations on the format with Micro Machines being quite a popular franchise that still continues today.

Which brings us to EA Games' brand new non-franchise based Reckless Racing, an almost top-down 3D rendered racing game, with some destructible scenery and an indestructible car, plus a bunch of computer opponents to drive against.

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Game Modes
There are three ways to enjoy this game, the first is Dirt Rally which involves one of five race courses, both forward and in reverse, your choice of six vehicles with respective drivers, and three difficulty levels. Pick one of the unlocked courses, be first past the finish line after three laps, and you unlock another course.

Cars don't seem to have much (if any that I could notice) handling differences, so pick the girl in the buggy, or the redneck in the lorry, whatever suits you best. The other vehicles you ride against are the five you didn't select. If each driver AI has it's own personality, it's pretty hard to tell what they are.

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Tracks vary in length, some having more jumps than others, but the air you get from these is mostly inconsequential and generally only the purpose built ramps serve a purpose, that being to be taken badly and roll you onto your roof.

Some courses have points where if you take a corner badly, you will go off into a canyon or river, or roll into the trees onto your roof. Whenever this happens you'll get reset back to the track having lost a few seconds (and sometimes places in a close race) and a lot of speed. There is also a reset button you can hit if you bend your fender on a tree and can't be bothered to reverse out.

If racing other cars isn't your thing, you can race yourself using the Hot Lap game mode, where you try to get the fastest lap time in as many continuous goes as you can stand. Each time you beat your lap a ghost car showing your previous best lap will appear so you have some guide how you are doing. A neat touch, though I couldn't find a way to enable ghost cars to race against other than my own.

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There is an Online Leaderboards option but that requires signing up, something I'm not a big fan of just to compete against other people, especially when there is a system built into the iPhone for supporting that sort of thing in games anonymously.

Finally the last game mode is Delivery, in which you must race on a fixed map specific for this job, to fulfill as many deliveries as possible. Basically drive to a random point A, then drop it off at random point B, with a time extension every successful drop. A fun distraction, nice to add a bit of variety, but ultimately the weakest part of the game.

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