Just when it looked as if the computer racing game was running out of steam (or should that be fuel?), Ariolasoft have seen fit to release a new innovation in the form of Electronic Arts' Racing Destruction Set.

And no mere racing game is this either, oh no, RDS offers far more. For a start, not only can you race around any of the muititude of different courses provided, in the vehicle of your choice but you can actually design and build your own tracks and alter the specifications of the vehicles you race with!

As with all games of this genre the object is to get round a determined number of laps of a course in a quick time as possible and beat the opposition in the process. The opposition can be provided either by a computer opponent or a human one. If you do decide to race against the computer then there are three skill levels at which to try your luck. Should you find the computer too easy to beat then you can increase your own level of difficulty.

The race can take place over any number of laps between one and nine with one of four different landscapes in the background - racing (lots of flags and things), motox (tyres, flags etc), abstract (lots of op-an type lines) and lunar (moon craters and the like).

You can also change the gravity you wish to race under from one of the 9 main planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, etc) or some of their moons (lo, Callisto, Titan and others). Once you've settled on a course and car it to time to actually race...

There are two sets of rules that you can play under - racing or destruction. The latter differs from the former in that you don't only race around a track, you can play dirty with oil, mines and crushers at your disposal.

Either oil or mines can be added to I our vehicle along with armour or protection and crushers.

The variable factors are all dependent upon engine size and extras carried although the figures given are for the basic vehicle.

The vehicle currently selected is shown in all its glory at the top of the screen with its specifications below, The name, weight,power of the engine and other such associated attributes are shown along with the type of tires (well it is American) worn and the vehicle's traction on all three road surfaces (with the selected rubber wear).

You can fit street (good all round), slicks (best on pavement), spiked (excellent traction on ice but slow on other surfaces) or knobbly tires (good for dirt and not so bad on ice) to your vehicle and suitable tires should be chosen depending upon the composition of the course eg: plenty of ice on the course means that spiked tires would be an advantage.

Crushers, gallons of oil or landmines can be added to a vehicle and thus the overall weight, should they be required for a destruction race. Additional armour (or armor as the I Americanism has it) is available as a protection against the: destructive potential of the landmines.

A good acceleration isn't necessarily of the utmost importance but a good speed most definitely is. Therefore one should be careful not to have too much weight for the size of the vehicle. Keep the engine size large and powerful but don't take on loads of accessories that will weigh, and slow you down.

A good degree of traction is also of use. Once a vehicle has been selected and/or modified it can be saved to some form of magnetic medium, be it disk or cassefte, for future recall.

You simply select a part with the cursor and move it to where you want it to go on the course. The piece can then be physically altered and manipulated to your own specifications and can be raised or lowered to different heights, narrowed or widened.

The road surface can also be changed, chosen from one of three - pavement, ice or dirt. Once you've finished fiddling the piece can be stuck back on the track and when you are finally content with your design it can be saved out to disk for posterity, the computer checking the track for flaws before allowing you to do so.

JEEP
Horse Power: 2500-6600 cc
Weight: 2700-3425
Top Speed: 90-150
Acceleration: 5-6
Shock Strength: 111
A slow, but powerful, vehicle with good traction.

STING RAY
Horse Power: 5000-8200 cc
Weight: 3200-3500
Top Speed: 111-170
Acceleration: 5-6
Shock Strength: 61
Moves well but can't take the ruff 'n' tumbles too well.

LUNAR ROVER
Horse Power: 0 cc
Weight: 1700
Top Speed: 40
Acceleration: 5
Shock Strength: 150
Very slow due to lack of a 'proper' engine but climbs/grips well and can cope with the worst possible tumbles.

DIRT BIKE
Horse Power: 125-500 cc
Weight: 190-238
Top Speed: 70-100
Acceleration: 6-7
Shock Strength: 122
Good acceleration but low speed. Performs best on a dirt track as its name suggests.

BAJA BUG
Horse Power: 1200-2200 cc
Weight: 1600-1750
Top Speed: 60-115
Acceleration: 5-6
Shock Strength: 93
A rather useless car of light weight, low speed and poor performance.

PICK UP
Horse Power: 1800-8200 cc
Weight: 2600-4175
Top Speed: 80-145
Acceleration: 5-6
Shock Strength: 106
Similar in performance to the Jeep only more powerful.

STOCK CAR
Horse Power: 4100-7500 cc
Weight: 3400-3760
Top Speed: 190-200
Acceleration: 5-6
Shock Strength: 61
Very fast but lacking in efficient traction and shock resistance.

STREET BIKE
Horse Power: 50-1000 cc
Weight: 160-381
Top Speed: 100-180
Acceleration: 6-9
Shock Strength: 70
Excellent acceleration and speed but doesn't fair too well on low gravities due to its light weight.

INDY/GRAND PRIX
Horse Power: 1500-3600 cc
Weight: 1100-2600
Top Speed: 160-200
Acceleration: 7
Shock Strength: 35
Should be used for standard race tracks as it isn't really built for cross country racing.

RDS is similar to Pistop II in the respect that it is a split screen, two player, head-to-head option but from there on any similarity ends. The view is a totally new one - a sort of panoramic 3D view of the cars which fits in excellently with the program.

The cars themselves are very small and the tracks you can create aren't huge but the variety of obstacles you can introduce on them can be quite fantasitc with huge jumps, chicanes and slopes.

Making tracks is simple and playing them makes the time spent constructing well worth it. This is a superlative race game and with the two player head-to-head and track design it makes it a program you just can't afford to pass.

Although the cars themselves are really small this doesn't detract from the game at all and in fact makes it very effective when playing. The two player option is real pile of laughs, especially when you start land mining one another.

The gravity toggle is acem and hurtling around a track suicidally with a stock car on lo gravity is hysterical - you just fly about the place something horrendous. With the mega options and the track designer (which I enjoy using to its potential) you can have a brilliant racing session.

Initially you can spend your race time learning how the different cars behave and how best to use the different characteristics that they possess. At this level the game is great fun even if only played against the computer. Later on you may want to get into the complex business of building your own race track.

You really are spoilt for choice in terms of the the different effects that can be built in - short and deep drops, long gentle drops, ice patches, dirt tracks, different degrees of gravitational pull... The list goes on and on.

At this level the game moves on to be something much more than just a car race. Later still you can start to get nasty and turn on the demolition stuff, that sort of racing will call for different tactics as well as different equipment for your car.

Because this game offers so much variation in an area that is very popular anyway, it must be a winner. The game as a whole is of pretty high quality. Sometimes the graphics tend to be slighlt obscure but because they work so well the rest of the time the small defects are more than compensated for. An excellent game that should endure.