Outrun 2 (XBOX)

(Herald rating: ***)

Outrun was a popular game in arcades in the 80s and you feel like you should still be playing it behind a sticky arcade steering wheel, sitting in one of those awful, moulded plastic seats.

The game, rebuilt here for the Xbox, centres around eight classic models of Ferrari sports cars, including the classic Testarossa, F50 and 360 Spider.

Controlling your chosen Ferrari doesn't take much mastering; simply steer left or right, accelerate or break. A further two buttons will be used by those driving manual shift models for changing through the gears.

You take your real-world car through a cartoony maze of tracks that feature Palm Beach, Parisian streets and the Egyptian desert.

The racing takes place on busy roads so there is plenty of swerving through traffic, much like Need for Speed.

In typical arcade style you have to race the clock to the next checkpoint to stay in the game. The further you progress, the less important things such as braking become. In challenge mode there are also dozens of missions where you have to collect things along the way or follow directions from your ever-present female passenger.

There is no writing off your car, as the Ferraris bounce off the walls with nothing more than a slight shudder and the spray of dust and grass.

You get to choose the type of soundtrack you want to drive to, with many of the songs remixes from the original game.

The game is Xbox Live-compatible but you will need a minimum of four players for online races. There is no off-line, split-screen, two-player mode for the game so the only time you will get to directly race a friend is in the online version, but they must have a copy of the game and a subscription to Xbox Live as well.

If you are a fan of the realism and lush graphics of Gran Turismo 4 stay away from Outrun 2. It is fun and colourful, but relatively brainless.

* $120