Muppet Race Mania (European Version)

Muppet Race Mania is a racing game with many different facets. The game is based around various films of the Muppets; you can slide around the swamp racecourse from The Muppet Movie, race around the corridors of Happiness Hotel featured in the Muppets take Manhattan, skid around a snowy London Town from the adaptation of a Christmas Carol and get to grips with the surreal secret base from the Muppets from Space feature film.

The options are vast, choose from basic one or two player games, tournaments or even just meet the Muppets and check out their vehicles. Each featured film has a range of different tracks that you can unlock as you win races. Clips of film and sounds taken from the movies are scattered throughout the game for you to unlock and retain. Secrets are hidden all over the tracks, although to check out their locations properly you have no choice but to forfeit the races.

The range of Muppets to choose from grows as you complete each stage; you start with the more familiar faces including Miss Piggy, Kermit and Fozzie, then move on to more obscure characters - like my favourite Dr Teeth. The vehicle options work in the same way, unlocking as you progress. The vehicles are varied for each character, including spaceships, planes, trikes and Rizzo the mouse's block of cheese. All of the vehicles have been well tuned, so they all handle differently. For example, hovering vehicles such as Gonzo's flying saucer don't have as much grip racing around corners as the more "grounded" ones like Piggy's 4 wheel drive do.

As you fly around the course, make sure you collect the stars and fruits scattered around. Stars enable your weapons - exploding fish, penguins and my favourite: Kamikaze chickens. The fruits enable your booster. If you manage to collect the maximum capacity of fruit, you are then awarded a time penalty to inflict on the other racers - trapping them in ice, lilypads or sunglasses.

The one player tournament combines the usual races with an all out battle to junk each other's cars with your special weapons. There are no rules and you may leave the level wondering just what exactly you did to win. Nevertheless, it's the Muppets' way of doing things. Levels then progress into new dimensions, such as the Stunt driving level, where you carefully weave your way around large obstacles, aiming for a killer time. This is where the game gets highly challenging and mildly frustrating - enough to keep any aged gamer happy.

Muppet Race Mania captures the real "old skool" feel of the Muppet Show - that kind of ironic, manic reality that the original series held. Real Muppets fans will love this game and it's made well enough to be a challenge for any age gamer. The only difficulty I experienced was saving the game - there is no automated save which is a bit of a pain! Save and load are actually included in the options menu. Still, this is a highly enjoyable game. It's not going to test your brainpower; it's just a wicked laugh.