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Road
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White van man—don'tcha just hate him? Tearing through the streets with abandon on the implausible excuse of an urgent delivery, carving up other traffic, driving through the rulebook with impunity—sounds good, doesn't it?
As long as you don't mind the absence of the white van itself, Road Wage, a nifty piece of shareware downloadable from the web, lets you become the courier driver with the impossibly tight deadline.
You start off penniless with a small car, a package and a deadline. Meet it and you get paid handsomely—in fact, the more quickly you deliver, the bigger your tip. And then it's on to the next one.
Your "drops" take place in three main types of terrain—city streets, suburban sideroads and the countryside—but all challenges in all areas must be completed.
To begin with, you're presented with one mission in each of these terrains, all at beginner level. When you've completed them more difficult missions begin to appear
You can also opt for an 'evil" version of any mission, which involves helping the supply chain feed the forces of darkness rather than light—delivering rabid hedgehogs to a laboratory developing the latest in biological nastiness, for instance. But hell, the
Pay's much better in evil mode.
The mission briefings are imaginative and often amusing but ultimately irrelevant, as whatever your package and whoever it's for your strategy will always be the same: get to the drop before the time runs out.
And this isn't always easy. Not only is time always tight to begin with, but other vehicles seem determined to get in your way. One scrape too many, though. and your vehicle is rendered useless. When that happens you have to wait for a replacement to be dropped in by helicopter, losing valuable time. Likewise, certain driving practices will inevitably attract the attention of the law, which can chase you by car or, again, drop in by whirlybird to give you a stern talking to—actually, they pick your entire car up, then drop you back down on to the road again— didn't know that was in their remit...
To help you achieve the impossible, though, you can collect numerous "power-ups" on your way to ease your passage through often clogged roadways: turbo boost, invisibility, extra time, extra money—all can be picked up en route. You can also collect tank parts; when you've got
enough your vehicle turns into the tank, al ing you to crush or blast other traffic to heart's content.
But there are some bad items to avoi well. If you're not careful you can pick u extra i, 000kg in weight that slows you d no end, lose time off the clock, make ever, on the roads think you're a jerk (so what's for white van man?), or even trigger an z invasion!
As you progress through the missions gain more money you can buy a range of di ent vehicles, though all are, suitably eno. cars and light vans. Each has its own cliara istics in terms of vulnerability, acceleration top speed, and choosing the right vehicle fo job can be critical on those missions where need a delicate balance of speed and durat
Overall, the progressive challenge of game's missions is well weighted. Four k beckon—beginner, intermediate, advai and expert—and although early levels ca completed quickly, the advanced and expert level missions are pretty tricky. There are also occasional secret levels to discover.
On the downside, the game's graphics are very basic—take a look at the screen shots on the previous page and you'll see what we mean. What's more, you only get to see the action from a bird's-eye view, which is a shame,
But despite this, and the fact that it's much more simplistic all round than most of the other games looked at here, Road Wage is a curiously addictive offering that keeps you coming back for more. The cheeky soundtrack is perfect, the level of challenge just right and when you finally complete a difficult mission after many setbacks it's strangely satisfying. Good value for money, and an unusual slant on the genre. RM