Onrush

Within moments of starting Onrush’s story mode, we have our mission statement. As an opening voiceover explains, this is an idea that came to be “when rules started grinding motorsport down”.

Within moments of starting Onrush’s story mode, we have our mission statement. As an opening voiceover explains, this is an idea that came to be “when rules started grinding motorsport down”. In other words, forget what you know about a genre that seemed to be dying on the vine. This team of car nuts – Codemasters’ vehicular expertise paired with the off-road know-how of Evolution Studios – is clearly in the mood to shake up the arcade racer. Though can you even call it a racing game when there’s no finish line? In reality, Onrush is more like a high-end destruction derby, with strong hints of Burnout throughout, and even a faint whiff of Techland’s boost-happy Nail’d.

For a while, it’s pleasantly confounding. It’s a very literal kind of shake-up, in fact, as you find yourself jostling and being jostled alongside 11 other racers, split into two teams of six. These springy off-road vehicles range from chunky, heavy trucks to nippy but flimsy bikes, and you don’t so much drive them as throw them around. You’ll barrel through forests, across dams, into canyons, over dunes and even careen around a golf course, each forming a loose circuit of sorts, which widens and narrows throughout. When it opens out, you’ve got more of a run up to take down a rival vehicle; when the action is bottlenecked, a gentle nudge can be enough to send you hurtling into a wall.