Platform games have been around since Manic Miner first addicted a generation of eight-bit players, subsequent generations made use of better graphics and faster processors to produce more colour and complex platforms.

Rush Bros. takes the genre back to its roots with a game which would not have looked out of place on a Commodore 64. The main difference here is that you can play the game to your own music; it’s not a novel idea, as there have been previous games which allowed you to do this. You just have to collect the tracks you want to play in a single folder and then point the game at it.

The tempo of the music can directly affect your game play with more upbeat numbers hastening the rhythm of the traps; you might like to practice the courses with a little Mike Oldfield rather than Motorhead. Of course, if you insist on starting with pounding beats, only to find the course too difficult you can shuffle the songs to find a slower one. In most cases this is a moot point as the courses can be completed in less time than it takes to listen to a whole track.

You play one of two DJs who run, jump, climb and slide across a course, the first one to the end wins. The game can be played in single player mode, but this is mostly useful for practice and not as much fun as playing against a human opponent, either in the room with you or across the Internet.

There are a number of obstacles and aids dotted across your path, from the inevitable spikes, to more useful springs, there are coloured keys to collect and movable objects to interact with. Game play is smooth and the game responds well to controls, although I would suggest you play with a gamepad as the keyboard is an inelegant solution for such a rapid game. Die and you get sent back to a checkpoint, there didn’t appear to be any point at which the checkpoint was too close to an obstacle forcing you to die again and again.

The forty levels have a certain diversity and in split screen, two player mode, if you get ahead of your opponent then you have the opportunity to lay traps, you have the ability to track the other player with their ghost image. If you play in solo mode you see a ghosted version of yourself, useful if you’re trying to beat your own time across a level.

The game is really designed to be played against another player; the solo game play is pretty short. The levels are colourful, although I would have liked to see a lot more diversity in level design. Perhaps more levels, or even a level designer, are waiting in the wings. A designer would certainly add more challenge for two player games.

Certainly, Rush Bros. is fun, even if the collected elements have all been seen before; the two player experience is far superior to the solo runs. It’s not ground breaking, but would certainly hold its own as a fun diversion.

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Charles Packer