Each section has the ultimate goal of reducing your “mayhem” meter, which seems oblivious to how often plow through innocent bystanders. Missions are spread throughout the city and you merely drive into them to start. Then the radio operator will tell you what to do. I actually like the radio operator. She’s not some disembodied announcer that just shouts random adjectives like “Excellent” when you do something vaguely interesting. She’s a radio operator who starts in every time with the appropriate “Chzzt!” radio noise.

The only drawback is that her voice comes in simultaneously over the remote and the television. At first I thought it was only coming in over the remote, which I thought was a cool idea. Like I had the radio in my hands and she was talking directly to me. When I realized she was coming in over the TV, all the air had been let out of my sad little balloon. She’s just talking out loud now, anyone can enjoy her demands. I was no longer special. I realized this was for the better when it became obvious that she was a little bipolar. One fantastic crash into an unusually light semi would result in a cheering hoot, while the next one would result in a scolding reprimand.

Maybe there is some subtext in there somewhere about a tawdry love affair that ended over her violent mood swings.

The vehicles handle well enough as you tear down the road. Fortunately for you, running into things has little to no consequence unless you are on a mission to deliver something fragile. The only problem with the control is the “break.” Since you are always on a timer, its important you are able to quickly stop on the designated goal locations.

Each is a circle on the ground about the size of you’re vehicle. The break button isn’t so much a break as it is the reverse button. Intuition would have you apply the break and hold it down as you would in real life, skidding into your desired spot, lighting a cigarette, and then being surrounded by adoring fans and attractive members of the opposite sex as you exit the vehicle. Instead, you end up stopping abruptly and then hauling ass backwards like you’d forgotten to turn the stove off.

The Havok engine produces some nice in-game physics, but not as well as you’d expect from Havok. Most objects are destructible, but not in any intuitive manner. Light poles tear away like cardboard, large semi trucks appear to be fashioned from balsa wood, but traffic lights are reinforced titanium.

Driving missions vary from “Take this here” to “Get somewhere quick” all the way the ever-popular “Go there.” The only real derivation is a police mission where you to run the same black Ford Bronco off the road. Which is pretty frustrating because you have to ram him until a meter is full and he decides he’s had enough and pulls over. What’s frustrating is the fact that if he hits anything else he doesn’t take any additional damage. If you crash into him and send him flying into a semi it’s as though what you did was devastating, but the semi was an insignificant tickle.