Even as a 'comic', novelty racer though, things just don't seem to gel. For a start it's spine-shatteringly hard. Even using all one's racing line experience gleaned from years of driving sims, one is soon peering at opponents' tails waggling off into the distance. Due to the fact that you are controlling a running 'thing', all previously accepted knowledge goes out of the window - leaving you to coax a leggy annoyance into last place time and weary time again.

A power bar displays your beast's energy and wealth, while numerous power-ups - shrinking, power burst etc - enable you to hinder your associates' progress in a variety of ways. But even with these details, it just doesn't get out of neutral. The handling of your cantering fool is dreadful. You constantly find yourself bounding headlong into walls, other riders and assorted bits of scenery.

The visuals are quite astounding in their banality. Detail on the mounts is restricted to a little dab of shade here and there, rendering their shape on occasion, quite ambiguous. Pink. Purple. Lime. Yellow. All the twee, sweetshop shades are blobbed on, but one cannot live by colour alone. A spot of form is pleasant now and again. Two-player fun almost begins to redeem the title slightly. At least here, the match is slightly more even and a passable experience of belting bombs at each other can be gleaned.

Ultimately however, one only has to look to the beautifully honed pleasures of Micro Machines V3 and Circuit Breakers to see how lighthearted, multiplayer race em' ups should be crafted. From the evidence available here, Bomberman should stick to the sluggish, top-down, retro stylings he is known for and leave any attempt at hasty movement to the experts.