Kung Fu Rider Review

I like funny as much as the next guy – more, even – so Sony is probably aiming Kung Fu Rider at hilarious, joy loving jokesters such as myself. I imagine Sony Japan's design brief was to make a game that was wacky and fun. It certainly is wacky.

The idea is to guide your character – the white-collar office worker Tobin, or his scantily-clad assistant Karin – down various urban Japanese hills on the back of an inappropriate, wheel-bearing vehicle: an office chair, stool (seat, not faeces), child's toy and vacuum cleaner are a few of the examples on offer. How delightfully bizarre! On the way you'll encounter obstacles, such as cars, dudes walking across the roads with ladders, and the mafia. You've really annoyed the latter for some reason, but it doesn't matter: just thank the heavens they're chasing you down the hilly wonderlands of industrial Japan and not across the flatlands of East Anglia.

To ride your makeshift escape vehicle you use the Move controller, and that's when the game starts to fall apart. Basic speed is gained by gently wiggling up and down, but move too aggressively and you'll end up braking or jumping into the air – these commands are idiotically mapped to the extremities of the waggle. You steer by waving the controller left or right, but you need to be careful to keep your movement on a purely horizontal plane else you'll probably end up diving into the air at a inopportune moment. Sidesteps are on the Circle and Cross buttons, and Kung Fu moves can be deployed by holding down Triangle or Square and moving the controller in one direction - though you'll almost certainly just rely on the far simpler roundhouse kick, mapped to the Move button.

The other moves you'll need to be aware of are leaning backwards, triggered with the T button, so you can dodge barriers, road blocks and bo staffs while having a cheeky peek down Karin's shirt (those kerazy Japanese!), and also a quick dash forwards – supposedly executed by thrusting your Move controller towards the screen, but more likely whenever the game feels like doing it. This charges you across the screen, using up part of your energy bar, and goes very fast – so much so that it’s near-impossible to steer. You'll mostly end up running into walls and colliding with random cars.

While you're busy fighting the controls, the game will tally up points for you dodging enemy attacks, destroying scenery or picking up the bounteous streams of collectibles. If you can navigate the track with poise, grace and accuracy then you'll string together a combo chain, though the basic navigation is so sloppy you'll probably never get that far.