Carmageddon Rogue Shift: a videogame "stuck in neutral"

If you’re greying at the temples, regularly suffer from back pain and your knees click when you stand up, you might recall the name Carmageddon from the 1990s. 

With its focus on marmalising pedestrians, this violent sci-fi driving game managed to generate more tabloid column inches than a Beckham family fallout. Don’t get too excited, though. 

This new entry, Rogue Shift, is a Carmageddon game in name only. For a start, you’re actually expected to finish races in the top three, rather than just reducing your opponents to scrap, which is surprisingly inconvenient. It’s also lacking the sense of humour the earlier games had and emphasises weaponry rather than neck-snapping high speed collisions. 

And while it might seem odd to complain, given that the game is literally set in the post-apocalypse, the tracks feel utterly lifeless. Bad news for Carmageddon true believers awaiting a sequel, Rogue Shift is stuck in neutral. £40, Xbox/PC; £33, PlayStation