Vigilante 8 is a fair bit of mindless fun, especially in multiplayer mode. With three other human opponents, it's frantic and reasonably enjoyable. You can also team up and hunt down the evil N64 drivers.

Alas, dear reader, what could have been an excellent game is spoiled by two crippling-ish flaws.

The physics are ridiculous. As soon as you hit a bump, you fly miles into the air, spinning in slow-motion. If you drive up too steep a slope and flip your car over, it slides along. For ages. Slowly. (Although sometimes you can, oddly, still steer it.)

Anyone familiar with American racing games like San Francisco Rush and Cruis'n (Cruising. Glah) USA will be right at home, but some snappier Mario Kart-style handling would have been most agreeable.

The second problem is the weedy weapons. You can't tell what you're going to get when you bust open a crate, but it's almost always a disappointment. Even if you manage to hit something with one of the more feeble weapons, such as the mines or the purple spitty thing, it takes far too many shots to score a kill. You're supposed to use special moves of the up-down-fire variety for advantageous firepower, but even if you remember all the combinations it's still not enough to bring in a multiplayer battle beneath that telling "welcome outstayed" line.

A decent try (and the only game of its type on the N64), but bear in mind that a sequel's due for December. It will probably be better, as these things usually improve.