Comic-styled characters have exactly that – character, each animated down to the individual finger bone. But there's nothing comic about the way they do battle with the player, pairing up in teams to deliver one of the freshest racing game AIs ever seen.

Its water technology is making waves too, leading to the most attractive recreation of the sloshing wet-stuff yet seen in a game. Highly optimised Environment-Mapped Bump-Mapping (EMBM) technology provides the sparkle and reflections, while physics leads to waves interacting in ways that deliver unique gameplay for every level and floating objects that react in a convincing