Its a bold company that takes on the likes of the huge Micro Machines franchise. Its an even bolder company that runs that huge franchise close in terms of quality and playability – twice. A while ago, the UK developers of the Megadrive’s cracking mini-racer Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament – Supersonic Software – branched away from the franchise and released their own cartoon racing title Circuit Breakers for the PSOne, which did more than pay a passing nod of acknowledgement to their previous work. Empire Interactive now have the publishing duties for Supersonic’s new title – Mashed – which once again is not too dissimilar to the now mediocre Micro Machines licence.
Despite the ludicrous name, Mashed is a racing game. Whether or not it was Supersonic’s intention to make it into a party game is unclear but for those of you with any doubts, Mashed is as simple as they come. In most races, your character (named after the colour of their vehicle) must battle their way to the front of the pack in any way they can, with the ultimate goal to be a screen’s length ahead. When you reach this point, the game stops, you’re awarded a point and then dropped back onto the track to give it another go. This battle continues until either yourself or your opponent has picked up the required amount of points to win the match.
It sounds more complex than it is, and you shouldn’t really have any problems in picking up the basics. Any players of (dare I say it) any of the Micro Machines titles will doubtless already know how the game works. There are straight up lap races and various other challenges to be had in Mashed’s single player mode, and the curiosity that makes you want to see what the next unlockable track consists of can easily get the better of you, leading to some overly long sessions of play. The old “just one more go” comments will soon be pulled out of the cupboard once you pick up the controller and start playing. The addition of some fairly standard weapons (guns, rockets, mines, oil) to the mix is a bonus, as is the sometimes interactive scenery, that will throw out a pile of fallen logs or a broken cable car to block your path just when you least expect it.
On top of the straight up multiplayer battles, there is also a cracking driving-based “Capture The Flag” mode to be played with, as well as the intriguing (but purely functional) “Fugitive” mode, amongst others. Graphically, the simplistic vehicles and wonderfully detailed locations make for an interesting package, whilst the constant flow of stereotypical insults from the AI opposition will generally be enough to make you reach for the “mute” button rather quickly. In multiplayer, you’ll be too busy launching your own verbal attacks to care, but that’s no excuse.
However, there is a flaw, as there must be. In Mashed’s case, the camera is the main problem. For a good portion of the time, the helicopter-style camera does an admirable job in keeping up with the action but when it does fail, the leader is fairly certainly going to lose a point as the view switches to a back-of-the-pack opponent who has just hammered into a mine and put themselves out of the running for this particular point. It happens rarely, and sometimes recovers quickly enough for you to go on playing regardless, but this makes it nonetheless annoying.
At its simplest, Mashed takes the most fun mode from the Micro Machines titles and pretties it up for your delectation. Looking deeper reveals a game that whilst not entirely original, is a heck of a lot of fun. Get four controllers plugged into your Xbox, put them in the hands of four like-minded friends and you’ll have a whale of a time, guaranteed. The single player is fairly well-catered for too, with a challenge mode that does exactly what it says on the tin by providing a real challenge that will keep you playing for a fair old while. Mashed scores low marks for originality, but goes straight to the top of the class for effort, execution and good old-fashioned fun. Addictive stuff.
