Dangerous Driving

In the world of racing games, titles tend to fall into one of two categories: realistic driving simulators or over-the-top arcade action driving. Dangerous Driving is doing doughnuts and burning rubber firmly in the latter category. There's very little that anyone might consider realistic in this racer, but that's also the point. The game encourages players to try and pull off some of the most ridiculous and, well, "dangerous driving" they could ever imagine on the open road. Speeding past other cars by the skin of your teeth, pulling a pit maneuver to send an opponent careening into a barrier, and of course, causing a massive pileup of twisted wreckage, all make for an insane series of racing. Plus, thanks to the lap-based gameplay, your actions in one lap can have direct consequences for you and your opponents later in the race. It makes for a driving experience that's fueled by adrenaline as much as anything else.

As much fun as Dangerous Driving can be, though, there are a few issues which keep it from ever quite getting up to full speed. For starters, the game can get repetitive relatively quickly. Doing laps means seeing the same scenery over and over, and it's a feeling made worse by the fact that none of the tracks really feel that different from the others. There are some technical glitches that pop up from time to time, usually involving respawns after crashes or wonky camera placement, but nothing that makes the game unplayable. It's an occasional nuisance at worst. Finally, there's not a lot of challenge posed by the AI opponents. Once you take the lead, it's yours to lose. Unless you make a catastrophic mistake, you can almost guarantee your win. While online multiplayer has been mentioned for a future update, as it stands, you'll simply be spending your time running circles around the computer-controlled competition.