Garwoofoo

I don't follow football so the Man City thing has passed me by, but aren't they all at it? I'd always assumed football had been just a money laundering exercise for at least thirty years now, for pretty much every major team, and Man City were just doing it a bit more or less subtly than all the others. In the same way I just assume Olympic athletes are all on drugs, just really good ones that haven't been detected yet.

I enjoyed this first time experience so much, I'm looking into the prequel/sequels and new remake, wary of the fact that after 5+ games the mechanic might get a bit stale but I think experiencing them is something I want to do at some point.

I played the first two on the original Xbox, way back on first release. I remember finding the first one the scarier of the two (although the second had better jump scares) and my favourite of the two overall. I don't know why it always seems to be the second one that gets remade over and over though, while the first one is basically forgotten.

Two different types of brake?

I like the two boosts, to be honest, it adds quite a lot of strategy to the game. I’m glad I’ve got a controller with rear paddles though as having to click the stick for Ramjet each time must be quite awkward.

It doesn't look like it (at least not in Time Trial mode - haven't looked at Arcade yet). There's a set configuration for each trial that's shown before you begin.

Like most roguelikes, it's going to take a lot of runs to unlock the kind of permanent upgrades that make the whole thing manageable. You unlock racing styles, "favours" (bonuses) and permanent upgrades for each of the vehicles that carry over between runs, plus you can add to your pool of unlockable parts for purchase during the runs themselves. The logbook is quite daunting in terms of all the stuff there is to get.

The actual races don't seem to care what position you finish in, though, as long as you don't die. It's the Elimination races that can kick you out on your arse, and they can mostly be avoided on the map if that's not your thing.