When does the weight of expectation exceed a game’s accomplishment? Were it not for a certain atomic monarch taking Forever to hit the shelves, Gran Turismo 5 would be the highest profile delayed game of all time. Helmed by car enthusiast producer Kazunori Yamauchi (a man so passionate about his life’s work he actually bleeds petrol), Polyphony Digital has spent five years, 20 gigabytes of Blu-ray disc space and truly outrageous quantities of cash to bring PS3 owners what was supposed to be the perfect racing game.

Perfection is of course something to aspire to rather than achieve, but the margin by which they have fallen short may come as a surprise to devotees of the series. Now, before you all turn the keys in your Abarth 500s to hunt me down and reverse over my head, this is no exercise in sensationalist trolling. Before we get on to the negative, here’s the teaspoon of sugar. Gran Turismo 5 is obviously a breathtaking experience. The series’ reputation for delivering an unrivalled breadth of vehicles, courses and tuning options is intact, its forays into new driving genres add immeasurably to the variety of the mechanics, and GTTV is everything a car enthusiast could desire.

The track selection hasn't had the same bump in content as the cars. The Dunsfold Park and NASCAR circuits play perfectly but look a little underwhelming.

Yet for all of PD’s hard work, Gran Turismo 5 simply doesn’t feel finished. If you thought Yamauchi offering 1031 drivable cars sounded like the over-reaching ambition of a madman, you were right. In a book-balancing compromise, only 200 or so cars are premium with the remaining 800 or so listed as standard range. Premium cars are near-flawlessly rendered, meticulously detailed from bumper to spoiler, including gloriously realised cockpits with not a stitch out of place.

The remaining 800 cars, however, are GT4 hand-me-downs, and noticeably lower quality despite an HD respray. Sporting a generic bonnet cam in place of unique interiors, they come equipped with low-res textures and simplistic shading. Even the developers must have felt pangs of embarrassment, as the Photo Travel mode that allows you to snap your car in picturesque locations is confined to the premium suite, lest the standard models fall under uncomfortable scrutiny.

Responding to the inroads Forza has made with a robust damage model was high on the expectation list with GT5, whipped to fever pitch by stunning screens of concertinaed bonnets and spoilers hanging precariously from boots. You could however easily be forgiven for thinking that they completely forgot to include it after extensive time in competitive races. Having run a 418 BHP Lancer Evolution VI head-on into a wall, we can confirm that the feature does exist, but once again the premium models see the greatest benefit – and it’s definitely skewed slightly to the wrong side of realism, with the amount of effort it takes to put a dent in some of the cars.

Up to 16 cars can race at once (over double the previous amount) making for busy races and some stunning views.

Since the first game in series Gran Turismo led the pack visually – from its translating the exhilaration and atmosphere of motor-sports into the environments to those cleverly post-processed replays that, given a squint and the wail of Clarkson, could have been lifted straight from an episode of Top Gear. GT5 maintains this impeccable standard for the most part, but when it falls short it stands out like a key scratch on a new Lamborghini. The game engine seems ill-equipped to deal with shadows, shady little gremlins ruining the photo-realism that the stunning premium models work so hard to achieve. The effect is compounded when racing in low-light conditions, or when the tyres are kicking up clouds of dust or snow, creating some hugely pixellated messes of badly behaved low-res textures.

So why spend so much time pouring over the bad in GT5 when all these criticisms are superficial and so obviously outweighed by the good? Well, this is Gran Turismo, and expectations couldn’t be higher. PD has taken such pains on some fronts that its failings on others are doubly conspicuous. The new game boasts a frightening number of cars, but consistency is lost when such favouritism is shown to a lucky 200. Polish, luxury and comprehensive detail have long been the hallmarks of GT’s success, and when they take a dent, so does the overall experience.

Whenever a game feels obliged to dip its toes into the murky waters of morality – and thanks to Peter Molyneux and the bleeding heart brigade, rare are those games that don’t feel obliged to dip said toe – it’s generally assumed that good people have less fun. Evil-doers are invited to indulge themselves, blowing up puppies at the drop of a karma point, while guardians of the common weal must live out their days breathing quietly, straightening bent nails and getting the kids to bed by 8pm.

Not so the law enforcers of Southcrest County, on whose roomy, gently curving fictional roadways Criterion’s Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit takes place. Southcrest County! Where patrolmen bust daredevil racers by hurtling into them so hard they flip clean over the bonnet and bounce off the car behind. Where cop helicopters (“cop-ters”?) casually unroll ribbons of steel barbs across bustling motorways. Where totalling a civilian vehicle by accident costs you bonus points, rather than ensuring that you’ll spend the rest of your career behind a desk.

There isn’t even a plot to explain away the absence of police restraint, other than the few lines you’re given in each event briefing – and a damn good thing too, previous efforts in Need for Speed storytelling being akin to the dribble down the title page of a Roland Emmerich screenplay.

Does it look good and perform well? Yeah, you could say that. You could also say: locked at 30 fps, no tearing, low latency, 720p. Thumbs up.

It’s not the only franchise darling the minds behind Burnout Paradise have sacrificed. Hot Pursuit is one of the most aggressively pared-back – or, if you prefer, cleaned-up – sequels I’ve played in a while. Under the bonnet customisation? Out on its arse. Ride pimping? Gone, save for a half-dozen whole-body paint-jobs. RPG skillsets? Flayed away. AI wingmen? Nuked. Terrain traps, “heat” levels, speed camera races? Nixed, nurfed, nobbled.

We’re left with 66 dazzlingly modelled supercars, a world map screen where new events (and routes) are unlocked by gaining ranks in either the SCPD or underground racing scene, the throwaway option to free roam, and a slender mode selection whose standout is the titular Hot Pursuit, which sees underground racers jostling to the finish while evading the fenders of the wrathful fuzz.

In case barging other cars into track boundaries or spinning them out with a timely clip wasn’t energetic enough for you, each faction gets four fanciful “weapons” to deploy against hostile traffic. Cops can call in roadblocks, unload spike strips behind their cars or summon a helicopter to drop one in front of the pack, and blow the circuits in a target with an electromagnetic pulse. Racers also get spike strips and EMPs, but their other abilities are geared to evasion: a turbo boost, knocking the air out of the audio before slamming on the afterburner, and a jammer, which briefly silences police radios.

Hint: aim for the bit where the police cars aren't.

Scoring a hit with one of the offensive tools is a sensation. Whenever somebody’s tyres fall victim to your spikes the game toggles auto-pilot, cutting away to leer over the carnage in slow motion. And there’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of arriving at a roadblock to discover a former speed-freak, health in the red, attempting dazedly to negotiate a quartet of Range Rovers.

For all the viscerality, though, nothing feels over-powered, partly because there are no mid-race pick-ups but also because each special ability is designed to compliment, rather than overrule, one’s mastery (or not) of the corner-friendly arcade handling model. EMPs don’t so much damage as disorient, and require that you keep the other car locked for a few seconds. Spike strips are easy to see, boasting bright red running lights. Even upgraded road blocks have their soft spots.

Criterion has referred to the relation between enforcer and enforced as akin to a dog chasing down a rabbit, and providing we accommodate the prospect of the rabbit side-swiping the dog into an oncoming camper van, the analogy holds. Faster, tougher cop vehicles have the advantage on the straights, while racers must use civilians (or, indeed, their rivals) as a screen, keeping one eye out for off-road shortcuts. Nitrous has a more than usually nuanced role to play in distinguishing styles: enforcers recharge it simply by keeping pedal to metal, but racers must drive dangerously – hogging the opposite lane, for instance – for their precious, precious speed-fluid.

The game’s very forthcoming with the unlockables, rolling out virgin hubcaps, untried engines and weapon upgrades at a rate of one every couple of events – assuming you score a merit or above, which isn’t difficult, the AI being a mild beast.

Besides having no respect for granny drivers, the police of Southcrest County certainly do enjoy a bit of gloss.

If you’re looking for real challenge, the place to look is online – not that you’ll have to, as in a Facebooky twist, the trials and tribulations of friends and rivals are broadcast continually into single player via EA’s much-sung Autolog system. Should a mate flatten your best time on a particular event, you’ll be told about it and invited, with a squeeze of R2, to reclaim your podium spot. Having done so, you might add insult to injury by posting a picture and some gloating remarks to your Wall. It’s a smart, obligingly integrated system.

And it keeps your gaze turned towards the eight-slot multiplayer, which is where the new Need for Speed deserves to be experienced the most. Running on the same courses with the same mode suite, and sporting no netcode issues at the time of writing, multiplayer Hot Pursuit is a blast. Racers pair off to cripple an isolated copper, then go for each other’s throats during the final mile. Coppers fry racers as roadblocks loom, leaving them unable to avoid collision.

Even prior to the full-scale revamp that began with SHIFT‘s unveiling back in January 2009, the Need for Speed franchise has been characterised by constant revision, darting between intense cockpit simulation and splashy cartoon absurdity, hair-trigger cornering physics and driftsville, tight-lipped garage sim and mouthy gangsta flick. This instalment is the pick of the lot. It’s a game built round a single mode, in effect, but with its hefty community presence, asymmetrical flex and raw kinesis, it offers more entertainment value than racers many times its size on paper.

Read our score guide here.

“Race like a big boy,” tease Activision in Blur’s Mario Kart-baiting TV spot for the powered-up racer. While some publishers may shy away from direct comparison with a more established competitor, Activision’s self-assurance is not misplaced.

If anything Blur’s crackling exchanges of neon carnage owe more to the futurist design school of Sony’s Wipeout series than Nintendo’s genre-birthing classic, but that’s not where the cribbing stops. Following the trend seen in a growing number of post-Modern Warfare online-focused games, Blur’s multi-player progress is driven by gaining fans (XP) to ascend through 50 ranks through equipping mods (perks) to be given the option of going Legend (Prestiging) where you can repeat the process once again in souped-up vehicle.

Learning to store an mix of power-ups appropriate for any occasion is a must.

Quite literally advertising its inspirations for both off-road and online, it would be easy for Bizarre Creations’ brawling racer to lack that unique spark of identity to stand out from the pack, but it has attacked the project with such gusto and robust inclusiveness, that it’s hard to pick fault with its concept, and to give it its due, it even finds some space to bring some innovations to the starting grid too.

In a swirl of leaves and tail-light trails, Blur greets us at the Golden Gate Bridge to the gongs of Ennio Morricone’s Ecstasy of Gold with vehicular massacre not seen since the opening sequence of the A-Team. As Bizarre’s Ged Talbot told us back in March, Blur is not a racing game – it’s an action game, and appreciating that 25% to 75% racing to combat ratio is a critical to success. Familiarity with Blur’s eight deceptively varied power-ups is crucial, and not purely in the aggressive pursuit of destruction. Learning to defend yourself effectively is the only way to stay out in front and with up to 19 opponents holding up to three power-ups at once, you will find yourself under constant assault.

Shunt is deadly when shot forward, but can be skillfully avoided even without counter power-ups through a well-timed slide.

Weapon balance remarkably tight, with power-up’s secondary functions drawing on a player’s situational awareness, expanding beyond a simple scissor/paper/stone priority giving you freedom to attack with defensive items and vice versa. Do you use barge’s offensive powers to clear out a crowded narrow and deal huge damage or save it for use as well-timed shield against a shunt (Blur’s red shell). While on the subject of shells, shock (ignore the icon – it’s essentially Mario Kart’s lead-cutting blue shell) is justly realised, targeting the front of the pack even-handedly, and can be skilfully avoided by accomplished players. Take note Nintendo!

However cheekily it may draft LittleBigPlanet’s slipstream in many respects, United Front’s ModNation Racers does veer away from the Media Molecule champ in one (besides being a kart racer, of course). It’s possible to peg out and test-drive a custom level in moments, rather than the hours, days and weeks we’ve plunged into Sackpeople habitats.

The means of doing so, what’s more, are pleasantly idiot-proof. There’s no clumsy jostling of cursors with an analog stick, or cowardly defaulting to mouse and keyboard: you create a race course simply by driving it, carving up a blank canvas at the wheel of a magic steam-roller. Curve back round to the finish line (or hold X to auto-complete) and hey presto! one fully playable, uploadable and rate-able automobile graveyard.

Decorating the course and pencilling in speed pads and the like won’t take much longer. If plonking down novelty volcanoes, beachside undergrowth, ski lodges or aircraft wreckage bit by bit sounds arduous, just hit auto-populate, paint an area and the editor will do the donkey work as appropriate to the environmental template, leaving you to prune the results.

Got a finishing line? Then you're done, basically.

Towards the more complicated end of the prop box, there are dynamic hazards like flame jets and crusher blocks, which may be linked to visible or invisible trigger pads. Drops in the ocean of LittleBigPlanet’s feature set, yes, but enough to afford a little tactical thought. Position a trigger just after a set of traps, for instance, and front-running players will be able to make life difficult indeed for those a few car-lengths behind.

The route itself can be raised, lowered, pitched, flooded, narrowed or widened, recoated with trustworthy tarmac or treacherous sand and gravel, infested with clockwork robots and pinball-machine style bumpers, split down the middle to create shortcuts, hacked into sequences of perilous platforms and jump ramps, and a fair few other things besides.

The interface is a little fiddly, particularly when it comes to picking individual course components out of the mass, but video tutorials and a control layout screen (one per tool) – not to mention the all-important “undo” and “redo” commands – are mere taps away, and the menu structure scales agreeably from radial hub to lateral quick-select to detailed square grid format.

This disgraceful skat3rboy caricature is the campaign protagonist, but fear not - you can easily transform his look.

ModNation Racers is a fun, intelligently assembled level creation toolbox, then. What it isn’t, so far, is an essential racing game. The genetic code is obviously that of Mario Kart – drift, boost, fire weapon, repeat – but the rough spots are rougher and the shiny bits not quite as lustrous.

Few companies can claim such domination of the Xbox driving landscape. In pole position at the birth of Xbox Live and responsible for one of the few games to demonstrate the power of the 360 at launch, Bizarre Creations are synonymous with being there first and doing things right.

Having ended their close relationship with Microsoft Game Studios following 2007s meticulously comprehensive Project Gotham Racing 4, their subsequent acquisition by publishing giant Activision has given the Liverpool-based studio some well-earned reflection time as they prepare to take their dominance multi-format.

The barge attack can be used at close range to blast surrounding cars or if well timed can even defend against attacks.

Ged Talbot, co-Lead Designer on Blur, explains: “After PGR we had a very open map. Activision basically said ‘What do you want to make?’ so we pitched them a few ideas and the action power-up racer seemed to float to the top”. Action here is the operative word – during our time with Bizarre Creations it became clear that they weren’t billing Blur as a racing game, but as an action game.

When broken down to simple video game mathematics, Blur takes everything Bizarre have learned about the grounded arcade racers over the last decade and adds a touch of violent abstract futurism, not unlike the Wipeout series created by Bizarre’s Merseyside neighbours at Sony. Throw in a bewildering set of modification options and some inventive approaches to online networking and you have an intriguing package that has more in common with a multiplayer-focused action title than simply a race for first place.

4-player split screen work amazingly well and the frame rate doesn't suffer one bit.

The successful combination of exotic real-world surroundings and desirable sports cars is once again at the heart of the experience, offering upwards of 30 locations and over 50 vehicles each with their own distinct handling and endurance levels, but it’s the introduction of weapons that changes the entire dynamic. Appearing across the tracks as unmistakable orbs of light, Blur’s eight power-ups present a number of offensive or defensive options. Shunt, barge, bolt and mine provide self-explanatory aggressive options, while shock, nitro, shield, and repair help out the less antagonistic player. Expert knowledge of their application grants players secondary functions such as nitro’s cunningly deceptive air brake, or skilfully firing a bolt backwards to deal with incoming fire.

Getting started with Forza Motorsport 3 is an unintentional advert for Blu-ray. Before you boot up the game you are presented with the usual optional install (though this one clocks in at an unusually large seven GB), a second content install disc containing a further two GB of content, then finally a DLC scratch card to download just under another GB of content.

I’m not entirely sold on Sony’s insistence on Blu-ray capacity being essential for gaming, but setting up Forza 3 really feels like going back to the Amiga days of multi-floppy disc installs. Let’s just say it’s not surprising that Microsoft chose to release a special edition Forza 3 console complete with 250 GB hard drive.

Ten times the polygons of Forza 2, noticeable in situations like this.

Having force-fed the 360 hard drive with nearly ten gigs worth of shiny vehicles you may think it’s safe to assume you would have a smooth loading-free time, though nothing could be further from the truth. Waits between races are agonisingly long and really do beg the question – if there is more data available for instant access on my hard drive than there is on the disc, why is this taking so long?

Casting those irritating technical issues aside, it’s only fair to ask what Turn 10 have changed in the two years since the critically acclaimed Forza 2. Forza is often dismissed as nothing more than Microsoft’s Gran Turismo, and while that could be seen as much as a compliment as a slur, Forza 3 clearly plays to its strengths, building on the unique features that separate Microsoft’s exclusive from Sony’s. Forza has built a solid reputation for creating a strong community of racers and moders and Forza 3 has expanded this aspect greatly with the introduction of the storefront.

It's a car and it's orange. Some screen shots really don't give you much to work with

The storefront is an Xbox Live Gold-only option that allows petrol-heads and designers alike to pedal their wares to the Forza community. Forza 2 only permitted production models to undergo the paintwork-Picasso treatment while the third game is more than happy for you to take a 1989 Ferrari F40 Competizione and childishly scrawl dobbers all over it. If others in the Forza community share your interest in defiling million pound sports cars with phallic imagery, you can sell it for in-game credits that you can use to buy other logos and designs. There’s even the option for eBay-style auctions and achievements for last-minute sniping.

Remember when draw distance used to be a big issue in racing games? No, Forza 3 doesn't either.

While Gran Turismo 5 is getting ready to implement body-damage to cars, Forza has long since allowed such destructive desires to be indulged. It’s only with this third iteration however that you can finally flip cars, which when you consider the sophistication of the physics engine, was painfully long-overdue. Further increasing realism options, the interior view puts you right in the driver seat, though the relatively minute dash-board dials still necessitate the HUD.

There’s some Planet of the Apes-level irony behind the bumper-to-bumper release of Motorstorm: Arctic Edge and the long-awaited PSP version of Gran Turismo. It’s like Kanye West sharing a microphone with Susan Boyle: on the one hand, the elderly epitome of automotive realism, swaddled in manufacturer logos; on the other, a racer whose idea of subtlety is seeing the paint flake when your skidding back-end haymakers some poor sap into a gorge.

Motorstorm is a glorious, glorious mess, the nearest thing the HD era has to a Mario Kart, and if this sub-zero iteration lacks the scale of its PS3 brethren it’s still as mad as a hatter. You’ll be cutting a graceful line through a hard corner, enjoying the hard-earned solitude of second place, only to get whipped in the flank by a four-strong domino-tumble of Big Rigs, dog-piling you up against the outer wall. Or steering a Big Rig yourself through the initial scrum, pounding rally cars flat before they can mount a getaway.

Hell in a halfpipe.

Evolution subsidiary BigBig Studios has had to hem in its 12 track layouts to fit the UMD (and also, perhaps, to reflect the reduction to eight drivers per race) but those tracks are still multiple-elevation, multiple-surface, multiple-hazard monsters. Tried and tested bipolar Motorstorm logic presides over the vehicle selection: bikes, trikes and other insects take the higher routes, with their frictionless stretches of toughened ice and rock, the brutes in the menagerie aim for the sludgy lowland plateaus and basins, and middleweights try to make their minds up before somebody cuts them off or wipes them out. That logic is never more than provisional, of course, and in the highly likely event of violent congestion you’ll find it pays to bypass your vehicle’s comfort zone.

Don't scratch the paint!

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