Bumper Cars

Bumper Cars is a same-screen scrap on a fairground dodgem floor after dark. The plate underfoot is polished steel that throws the canopy bulbs back at you in long warm smears, the rail is padded rubber in red and cream, and past it are popcorn and balloon stalls, painted boards and a ferris wheel turning slowly in the distance. Every car has a rubber skirt, a grinning driver and a contact pole that spits sparks at the ceiling grid the faster you go.

Stars drop onto the floor through the round and you collect them by driving over them. The other way to get one is to take it: catch a car across the flank or up the back and a star pops loose and skitters away for whoever gets there first. The floor is slippery, so the back end keeps going after the nose has turned, and a full-speed hit slows the world down for a moment while the sparks fly. There is an oil slick that takes your grip away, a bouncy ring in the middle that flings you off it, painted speed pads, a magnet that hauls every loose star across the floor to you for five seconds, and a horn that sends the computer cars scattering. Wobbly striped posts stand at the corners waiting to be clouted.

There are three floors — a big oval, a figure eight with a plank bridge at the waist, and a square built round a lit island — plus a setting that picks a different one each round. Play two at one keyboard or one phone, take on three computer cars at Easy, Normal or Sharp, or run the time-attack on your own and see how fast you can gather thirty stars. Sharp lines up its hits across your flank rather than nosing into your bumper, and keeps its distance once it is holding a handful. On a phone in portrait the rink runs up the screen and player two's controls and scoreboard are upside down, so the handset lies flat on a table between you. Pick your driver from a fox, a bear, a duck and a raccoon, pick a paint job from six, and take the round with a fanfare and a floor full of confetti.