Do you like unforgiving racers that punish you for the slightest, itsy bitsy mistake? Are you the kind of PSP owner who craves a technically impressive game engine that visibly suffers when too much is happening on screen? Is religiously following a driving line your idea of fun? Have you answered yes to the previous three questions? You haven’t? Then sod off and play Burnout Legends instead, you’ll find it far more to your liking.

Still here? Good, then you’re obviously a fan of the TOCA franchise and are no doubt fully aware of how challenging the series can be. True to form, Codemasters’ latest release is not for the faint-hearted, and if you’re the sort of gamer that normally throws your joypad down in frustration whenever things don’t go your way we’d advise you to stay well clear of Challenge, as you’re liable to end up with a broken PSP. Essentially a stripped down version of last year’s PS2 game, Challenge is broken down into a series of different tasks that range from following racing lines, to braking on specific parts of the track, to clearing a set number of laps without taking damage. Once enough challenges have been completed you can take part in a Championship, before moving up a difficulty level and starting the whole linear process again.

Fans of the series will no doubt love Challenge, but although it’s a more than competent racer, we just don’t feel that it’s suited to the PSP. Whilst the thought of minichallenges sounds like the ideal thing for the gamer on the move, the lengthy loading times kill any feeling of immediacy. Then there’s the over-sensitive analogue control that will punish you for even the slightest amount of over/under steer; the D-pad is better, but the control still isn’t as sharp as we’d like. Visually, Codemasters has done an impressive job of shrinking its PS2 game down to the PSP, but once the tracks start getting congested with other cars the engine starts stuttering and the fluctuating frame-rate gets really distracting.

Ultimately, Challenge just feels like it’s trying to do too much, and while owners of the PlayStation 2 original may fancy taking the PSP version for a spin they’ll no doubt be disappointed with how stripped down its become in the translation. Anyone else simply won’t be caring because they’ll be having too much fun playing Outrun 2006 or Burnout Legends.

Darran Jones