If you were to ask me to name something that, in my lifetime had explored every orifice I have available to explore, I would give you two answers. One would be my finger, which coupled with my childlike curiosity has certainly found its way into most nooks and crannies around. The other would be my collection of Micro Machines, so tiny and easily lost, it was a regular occurrence during my childhood, to spend an afternoon with an amused doctor and an irate mother, pulling my newest toy from one of the many places I felt it could fit.

While the toys themselves have slowly become as interesting to kids as a Happy Meal is to a vegan, the classic game of the mid-Nineties has been given yet another lease of life with Micro Machines V4. Many of us gamers from this particular generation will recall dodging spilled baked beans on the kitchen table and swerving around snooker balls to become the ultimate Micro Machines champion (if that title doesn't exist it really should). Now we have the chance to do it all over again and the sense of nostalgia involved with this game explodes through in a way that is guaranteed to put a childish grin on your face. Obviously, today's modern technology has allowed some more advanced graphics, such as superbly detailed courses and a huge array of cars, but what's more important here is that none of the addictive gameplay that we fell in love with has been tampered with.

From the outset there are two modes available. The single player career-style option takes you on a path of increasingly difficult cups, each unlocking a variety of courses and vehicles. And the multiplayer mode, in which friends can battle against each other in order to take both their cars and self-respect. I would advise putting the multiplayer option to one side for a moment, as the potential in this title is far from unlocked at the beginning and a decent stint battling through the career mode will provide a much wider scope for multiplayer mayhem.

The controls are what really appeals to me in Micro Machines; the cars seem to throw themselves round corners in that Dukes of Hazzard kind of way that we all used to mimic when pushing those tiny toy cars around any surface we could find. Of course, the success you have sliding around corners mostly depends on the type of mini-vehicle you are driving. There are several contributing attributes to each car, those being grip, weight, speed and acceleration, with most groups of cars specialising in one particular field. The power-ups collected along the way are deployed with a simple right trigger press and although there is a brake, it's only to be used by girls and scaredy-cats alike! [I can hear female gamers rising up in arms - he didn't mean it! Ed]. In any case, slowing down will only provide your opponents with the opportunity to smash you to smitherines.

Each vehicle has a health bar, which is made up of a green bar that turns yellow and then red as the car's health deteriorates. Slip into the yellow and you'll be cruising around corners in what feels like a modern day Skoda, fall into the red and you can expect to be in control of a car that handles like a Kia. [I can hear Skoda and Kia manufacturers rising up in arms - sorry guys, he meant that one! Ed]. Hitting walls and various other obstacles, such as inconveniently placed circular saws and malnourished chickens, also causes a dip in your car's condition. But the main wrath of destruction will always come from your opponents' clever and often malicious use of power ups. With a wide variety of items, from electric shockers to missile launchers and machine guns to some curious item called a daisy cutter, there are plenty helpful assets that can be used to gain a competitive edge. Receive a hefty battering from your opponent and there are all manner of health-rejuvenating items scattered about the track (although rarely where you need them!)

Micro Machines however, maintains the two biggest qualities that came with the earlier game, and even with the toys themselves, in that there are literally hundreds of cars to collect, all of which can be raced, and owing mostly to their size you can race them on just about any semi-flat surface you can find. Micro Machines V4 has embodied this with a whole host of weird and wonderful tracks. There's a disappointing amount available the first time you play the game, but that just makes it all the more addictive as you wrestle with the seemingly impossible task of mastering each course.

I think that's what makes this game so appealing; I want to put down the controller (smash it into a thousand pieces is probably more accurate) but I also don't want the game to get the better of me. However, once I have finally completed the particular level I've been stuck on for the past four hours, I still want to hang on and see what the next course is like, even as my girlfriend walks out of my flat with all her stuff, muttering something about not listening to her (I wasn't really paying attention). What also causes me to nod my head in approval is that this somewhat enforced game path means that once you have begrudgingly sat through hours upon hours of retrying every race over and over, you still have the multiplayer to look forward to. Of course, the only way to find a worthy foe by this point would be to locate someone doing exactly the same thing at that exact moment, i.e. some kind of other you in a parallel universe.

The tracks become more impressive as you unlock them; all the old favourites, such as breakfast tables, drains and snooker tables are present, but now with some more unusual courses like the chicken coop, all of which are superbly detailed, with every item creating a great sense of stature that continues the illusion of these vehicles being the micro size that we know and love. The music also has a heavy retro influence and the sounds made when skidding round corners, or bumping into garden tools, plays one of the biggest parts to that gooey childhood regression feeling.

I thoroughly enjoyed Micro Machines V4, probably because of the heavy dosage of nostalgia that it administered to me, but also because the developers obeyed the golden rule of retro game reiteration: provide the gamer with a modern day standard game whilst maintaining the elements they loved from the original, something that is not at all easy to do. As a result, games can suffer a drop in sales from young whippersnapper gamers who aren't aware of the title's heritage. However, I can confidently say that Micro Machines V4 will be loved by all those who sat playing the original in their shellsuit and Hi-Tek trainers. Whether or not it will tune the engine of those younger gamers remains to be seen, but if there is any justice at all, it will lead to a revival of interest in those tiny, tiny cars.

Reviewed by Rob Byron for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).