International Super Karts review

At some point in our lives, we've all come across a negative person - a person so dull that his or her joining a group has the same effect as a witty and intelligent person leaving it. International Super Karts is a negative game: add it to your collection and the average quality of your games will decrease dramatically, thus having a similar effect to losing one of your favourite games."Midas will be publishing the first ever kart racing game on the [Playstation 2]" proclaims the amateurish press release. It seems they haven't heard of Crash Nitro Kart. It then goes on to say: "Mixing fast-paced arcade action with realistic tracks, a variety of karts and rewarding time-trial and championship modes, International Super Karts looks set to be a winner." Let's analyse these points one at a time, shall we?'Fast-paced arcade action' is standing in the dock. Gamestyle supposes it must be action because stuff on the screen is moving, but fast-paced? The karts crawl along the track at a mind-numbingly slow pace devoid of any thrill. Gaming is supposed to be an exercise in escapism, and the first requirement of this is that a game should let us do something we can't do in real life (like manage a football team or shoot demon monkeys in the face) or be more fun than its real-life counterpart. Having actually been karting for real, Gamestyle can confirm that it's a great deal more fun than poking a blocky polygonal kart with slippy handling around a drab-paletted track.There is indeed 'a variety of karts' - each one as encumbered with ropey handling as the last (Gamestyle doesn't remember having to brake at every single corner when we tried real karting, or spinning round 180 degrees if we had failed to do so), should you have a desire to endure the soul-crushing monotony of International Super Karts long enough to unlock them. Keep the physics, but replace the karts with vehicles as befits the handling - such as Popemobiles or milk floats - and ISK might actually be entertaining for five minutes.Gamestyle gleaned no 'rewarding' experience from the time trial and championship modes, other than 'thank smeg that's over with - can we play some Shin Megami Tensei now?' The press release got one thing right, though: ISK looks set to be a winner... albeit in the 'Spanish Inquisition's favourite game' category, had they had PS2s in the 1500s. This game costs 15. For that price, you could have Crash Team Racing (Naughty Dog's last PSone game, and still a very enjoyable and colourful kart-racer with solid physics), or a grand day out at a real karting venue. As it is, this game gets a 1 only because Gamestyle doesn't do zeroes.