Mashed

[PeteJ]

I got Mashed this morning and have played it for a bit; I can see it being a great game with four people, but the single player is a bit dull even after an hour or so. I've unlocked 9 tracks so far and have achieved a few Silvers and Golds also.

In single player the camera is fine, until you reach the 'special' missions such as Bomb and Fugitive. The camera placement is just illogical and pure bad design - it would have been easier on the developer, and on the gamer, if they had just stuck to an overhead view. In fact, the entire game would have been improved with it.

The weapons are all very unoriginal, but they are all satisfying to use. The machine gun is excellent, I love the way the cars react when getting shot at

Not impressed with the single player at all, especially as the game forces you to play through the mode to unlock stuff for multiplayer - the worst sin a game of this type can commit. Utterly poor design on the part of the developer as it makes one player a lot better than the rest. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I look forward to multiplayer however, I just hope everyone gets on with the game because in a way I bought it just for them! Kinda

[PeteJ]

Reet, I have completed this 100% now, yay me! You have to get Golds on all 13 tracks to unlock the Bonus option screen from the main page, and in it you get...

Flip cam - mirrors the tracks. Can't play them in reverse unfortunately.

Aus Cam - strangely turns the screen on its head. Not quite sure in the point...

Retro Cam - You get an overhead view ala the old Micromachines. Quite cool, but it doesn't really keep up with the action quickly enough.

Mashed Cam - Blurs the screen a bit like the burnout effect from Burnout. Pointless!

And that's it! All that work for four different cameras, two of which are completely pointless, one is alright and the other quite neat. Of the three bonus tracks (which are unlocked by getting all Bronze, Silver and Gold on the normal tracks), the first is very irritating - scrap yard, lots of stuff to bump into. The second is cool - a war torn town, there is a nice bit near the end of the lap where you must all wait on a lift for about 10 seconds. The final track is a street race, which is nice and simple but made quite annoying thanks to the parked cars on the sides of the road that you can't see very well due to the camera.

Anyway, crap single player. Multiplayer is ace though.

[razu]

I've been playing this a bit at lunch and my verdict is: ****, but fun. Sort of like a shareware game really.

Takes ages to load too.

[mechamonkey]

I'd give it 5/10 single player and a whopping 9/10 4 player

Easily one of my fave multiplayer games ever, surely you must give credit to the genius rockets the KO'd players can fire ?

[goldbricker]

I'll give my support to the multiplayer on this as well I played it 3 player last night and it was a real riot. In a similar way to Circuit Breakers we found a course that everyone liked and then played it to death. The powerups are what make the game so much fun and the idea of someone who is out being able to try and take out someone else is genius.

Now I'm going to have to sit down with the single player game and try and unlock the rest of the tracks though.

This is definitely a game that should not retail full price but should sell for ?20 at the most.

[razu]

Yeah, by "****, but fun" i mean it's poorly made but there's something that keeps you playing.

I'd say it's one of those games your mates who are a bit into games would buy and you wouldn't mind playing, but you wouldn't pay money for it yourself.

[Mr Spew]

Played this in multiplayer (2 people) last night, it's great!

Apparently the single player isn't bad (I haven't played it, just my friend has), just nothing special.

[Leon Retro]

If a game is really fun and gives hours of pleasure then its a great game.

Mashed has simple graphics and sound. The gameplay is fairly basic and the structure is limited. What the game has in abundence is FUN!!!

I have the PC version and obviously it is clearer and smoother than the PS2 version. Its a shame the PS2 version looks so bad, the game is simple enough without the PS fuzz effect.

I have bought big name titles that cost top whack and they don`t come close to Mash in gameplay terms. The game proves that playability is king and even though the game isn`t flash it is still worth the asking price.

[csuzw]

I got this for the XBox and it's so much fun. The only problem I have with it is that to be able to do anything decent in multiplayer you need to have played through it in singleplayer - admittedly its not that hard but there are some levels that are giving me hassle. Also the controls are really twitchy and so its not that easy to pick up for a complete n00b. I played the PC demo and even using the keyboard I was into it straight away.

[fifty?ballz]

Yeah, by "****, but fun" i mean it's poorly made but there's something that keeps you playing.

I'd say it's one of those games your mates who are a bit into games would buy and you wouldn't mind playing, but you wouldn't pay money for it yourself.

rofl it's like the anti-truth of Mashed, me and all my mates, even ones
who never buy games have bought copies of Mashed on ebay recently, havent' stopped playing it.

Great game!!! I've been really enjoying the single player lots. I love the
way the camera is always moving about adding to the challenge.

[delb3k]

Time for me to wade in and add my support for the mashed singleplayer expieriance. Me and three other mates of mine went mad with this over one night and stuck with it for 4 hours straight. Single player is far too basic and badly done for it to be fun but multi-player is pure gaming crack for me. This is why I play games and this will be a definitive party game for many sessions to come.

[fifty?ballz]

Those stuck on the fugitive missions, you need to slip stream the them at the start and just keep up until they slow down on a corner or terrain, then whack, gold cup, easy.

[goldbricker]

Hmm this feels a bit old skool but there's a cheat that you can enter on the menu screen to unlock all of the tracks (including bonus tracks) and game modes. This saves you having to play through the single player game to do the same thing.

On the main menu screen press:
Up Right Down Left Up Left Down Right Up Down Up Down

I tried it on the PS2 in the magazine stand at Gamestars Live on Friday so if you played any of the additional tracks there then that was my doing