The music in Gripshift is good. There are some decent audio tracks featured with a total of around 25 in all and they do add atmosphere to the game. The main menu R&B-like title featuring the lyrics “Whatchawannado…Shift Back.. Grip…shift..” sounds ok at the start but will slowly drive you nuts the more you are exposed to it. I like it when the timer runs low the music starts playing at double speed, which adds pressure to the frantic rush to get to the finish.

Sound effects are ok. You can expect the standard growl of the cars, screeching tires, chimed pickups, blast of weapons and nitro and so on; nothing to write home about.

The voices of the characters are a bit cliché. One male driver spouted so much “DUDE!”, “Right on!” “Not cool Bro!” and “I totally rule”… that I switched to a chick for a while! There is only so much Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle speak I can handle. The announcer sounds like the female actor from “Iron Chef” counting you in with “Tree Twoo Wun Gowwww!” Cringe worthy, but thankfully it doesn’t detract too much from the game.

The game boasts “Puzzle, Platform, Driving, Action.” I wasn’t sure exactly what this meant but I was pleasantly surprised. The game does have elements of all these genres, Puzzling platform game-like challengers, lots of racing tournament action (including multiplayer) and Death match too.

The first thing I thought of when I jumped into the game was that it reminded me of an old school classic called Powerdrift. Gripshift also has elements of Mario Kart with weapons pickup on the tournament and race modes.

You can select different drivers (purely cosmetic) and you have access to a number of cars with varied attributes that suit the diverse game modes. You can even adjust the decals and logo on your car. Of course certain cars, decals, skins and characters will need to unlock before you can use them.

The Single Player mode is setup with Challenge Mode, Race Mode and Bonus Games. The Challenge mode is a series of puzzle levels. Essentially get car from A to B passing checkpoints in between. There are even a few races thrown into this mode to break up the thinking a bit.

Race mode is essentially a Mario kart clone but the formula still works. Bonus games are mini-games that remind me of those Flash games that go around on email. There are 6 games to unlock and they are all a bit of fun; the Penguin Bowling was fairly addictive.

The platform levels are sometimes annoying though and I found myself switching to another mode or game after my frustration levels peaked. Sometimes you have to experiment with different cars in order to find the sweet spot for a certain challenge. You can expect to float off into the void a lot.

Another annoying aspect was that the cars seem to float around the track and it took a lot of practice to get used to keeping the car on the straight and narrow. The cars just don’t seem to handle as you would expect, even after changing cars I was still annoyed by the fact I kept running off the edges of the track. I had to keep remembering that the handbrake, steering and nitro still worked while the car was airborne. It’s definitely not real world physics but it’s a not a racing simulation after all and it does seem to suit the platform-like challenges.

The track editor is impressive and is not just a tacked on feature. It allows you to choose many different pieces, angles, turns and eye candy, allowing you to create crazy tracks to share amongst friends.

I haven’t tried out the multiplayer (I only tested one copy) so you’ll have to write in and let us know. However I if it’s similar to the computer components it should be pretty enjoyable, I really wanted to try out the death match feature which sounds great!

The overall game controls are very simple; Accelerate, brake, nitro, shoot and handbrake.

The races are challenging but anyone who has played Mario Kart will find it easy to get right into.

Sometimes it is difficult staying on the track but the upside of this is that instant restart feature without requiring more loading from the UMD. You can expect to be pressing the restart option an awful lot though!

As I mentioned before the car is initially difficult to get used to as it doesn’t handle like a traditional car game.

It is difficult to maintain your speed on a course and at the same time try and collect everything and still make it to the finish without falling out of the course. In addition there are some pretty difficult puzzles to get your head around and some will get you very frustrated. The difficulty modes include Easy, Intermediate, Hard and Insane. When they say insane they do mean INSANE!

Thankfully you can get a number of credits that you can use to skip levels and there are so many other modes in the game that you can switch to if one level is making you tear your hair out.

This is a budget title so you can expect it to be around $55 AUD. There is no question that this game blows away the budget game competition in terms of gameplay and features vs. price. It offers hours of entertainment with over 100 levels, bonus games, multiplayer and even throws in a powerful track editor that you can use to create and share tracks with others.

One important note is that the game isn’t supposed to be a fully fledged racing game like Wipeout or Burnout Legends so make sure you realise this before you hand over your cash.

Even after completing the challenges you will still come back to play this title for the multiplayer, custom track editing and the mini-games.

This game is a great purchase on a variety of different levels. It offers heaps of varied levels, challenges, races, mini-games and even a powerful track editor. In addition to this, it has a good soundtrack, the visuals are decent and price is great. We need more games of this calibre in this price category.

Graphics: Sound: Gameplay: Difficulty: Value: Score:

7/10 7/10 7/10 6/10 8/10 7.3/10