If you find yourself getting bored with the games which come with your Pocket PC and want a bit of fun, take a look at Crazy Kart from int13 (www.int13.net).

Crazy Kart is a first person kart racing game with excellent graphics, animation and sound. Currently priced at a crazy $6.99 USD it is excellent value and a must for anyone who enjoys playing games on their PPC. The downloadable demo gives a very brief but tantalising taste of the quality of this very enjoyable and highly addictive game - it gives you about 55 seconds on two tracks, just enough to get you hooked.

The game provides three modes of play: Championship, Quick Race and Time Attack, a choice of four drivers, twelve built-in tracks and (currently) four free add-on packs containing further race tracks. A recently released editor permits users to create their own tracks.

The controls are fairly intuitive and easy to use. With the PPC held sideways, the navigator is used to control the left and right movement with the accelerator and brake being controlled by on-screen areas. The options screen permits the acceleration to be set to auto or manual, on-screen accelerator/brake modes configured, sound options and left/right handed operation to be chosen.

In Championship mode, after selecting your choice of driver, the game offers a choice of easy, hard, crazy or  external (add-on packs) tracks. there are four tracks in each set and you must win on each track, racing against the often three computer controlled contestants, to progress to the next track. Winning a race in Championship mode also unlocks the next track in Quick Race and Time Attack modes, so there is a dual incentive to win.

A race consists of four laps of the chosen circuit with the computer players always occupying the front three positions on the starting grid. Tracks vary in complexity, with objects and hazards to avoid, coins to collect to increase your speed, bonus boxes and, of course, the other drivers to keep you busy;  you can also fall off the edge in some races!

Quick Race mode permits you to select any of the unlocked tracks (see Championship mode above) and enjoy a... quick race!  Still competing with the other drivers, you can concentrate on just the one track to hone your skills for the Championship.

Time Attack is a simple race against the clock with no other drivers on track, highest lap times are recorded against each track.

The four racers - Franck (Frankenstein), Banana, Foxy and Bert (a shark!) - all have slightly different attributes which change their suitability for different track types (tarmac, snow, sand, etc.); it's hard to say exactly what, but you soon discover which seems more suited to which track type.  The program has excellent 3D cartoon artwork for various cutaway screens, the sound/music is just right and the graphics are simply wonderful.

Crazy Kart is a very entertaining, very enjoyable game of the highest quality.  It is fun, can be very addictive and (at the current price) is very good value for money - I heartily recommend it and give it a 99/100.