Gameplay elements include career mode style racing, vehicular battles, environmental destruction, tricks and stunts, and various mini-games which include launching drivers from the cars into bowling pins, and racing to the next checkpoint before a bomb goes off in your car. Money earned from racing and performing stunts can be used for purchasing new cars or upgrades such as tires, exhaust, gear ratio, and nitro. As I told you, it's the same old song and dance. There isn't even an online mode, which is rather disappointing. Head On really needs something to set it apart from the competition, and while there is a four-player multiplayer Wi-Fi mode, it only supports local play.

Speaking of disappointments, the graphics, or lack thereof, cannot be ignored. Some of the textures in the game are downright frightening. Fortunately the vehicles manage to maintain a decent level of quality throughout, but the environments do tend to look blurry and muddy, which can't be attributed to motion blur intended to convey a sense of speed. There are some framerate issues, but they are few and far between. The controls, although not very tight, are fast. Learning how to drive the vehicles is easy enough, but it will take a while to get used to the unnatural nature of the physics. The sound effects are about as good as you will find in any quality racing game, but the soundtrack will have limited appeal. It's just too generic.

Head On seems to offer plenty of racing features, but the core racing experience is less than perfect. So what we've got here is a fun little arcade racer that will be a fun diversion for a few hours, but the novelty is likely to wear off quickly.

By Cole Smith
CCC Senior Writer