Sometimes the cars have to be coaxed and squeezed round corners. They're tricky little buggers but they can be tamed, and when you've perfected a one-hundred-and-eighty degree hand-break turn to put off a pressing cop car, or skidded smoothly after breaking through the tight turn of the German village, you'd be forgiven for letting your rueful grimace turn to a broad smile.

The Cops and Robbers option, where you can either chase a speeding motorist or be hassled by a speeding police car, is a pleasant diversion, but it's Road challenge's traditional events which really see you testing your ability. There's a straight Championship tournament and several special events to take part in, success in which will give you extra tournaments with varying weather and night racing opportunities, the chance to improve your status from lowly beginner and the opportunity to upgrade your car.

Ah yes: the cars. Need For Speed's licensing department has obviously been working overtime because Road Challenge has oodles of beautiful cars to choose from. If you go down to the game's show room you'll see many beautiful things besides the little BMW Roadster beginners are expected to start off in (it's alright, though: it doesn't have stabilisers).

You may, for instance, see the lovely Lamborghini, but you'll be simply drooling over the Maclaren F1 - which only accomplished drivers (cough) are allowed to get behind the wheel of. The biggest road test, though, is whether you'll be bothered enough to play the game long enough to get the Maclaren and, on balance, there are plenty of reasons why you might.

No-one's going to tell you that this game takes racing on the PlayStation to another level, but addictive gameplay, lovely atmospheric views, an effective driving engine and a few laughs mean that Road Challenge is nevertheless a nippy little number which would not be out of place in any respectable PlayStation library. It has some nice music on it, too.