If you like to play your games in a strict solo mode, this one is certainly not for you. Huddle a few like-minded individuals around a multi-tap and you’re in for many an evening of slick mutant sprinting. If you already own a Micro Machine style racing game, then there is little here to recommend, since Maniacs is exactly the same as those that have come before in every way, though decidedly more bipedal.

Four minuscule racers rip their merry way around a variety of tracks, the gag being that they are so very small and the tracks are so very big. Funny, no? Not really, until you learn how to master each competitor’s unique, and you guessed it, ‘comical’ weapons. Due to the speed of the game and the fact that you only see a small section of the track at once, manoeuvring is really just a question of memory.

Only a player blessed with the power of precognition will be able to make it round the course without plummeting to their death a dozen or so times. But once you’ve mastered the track and get in the ‘zone’, the magic will begin to flow. Nice, simple and oddly addictive stuff indeed.