Crash: Boom Bang! review

Each turn and twist on a tiny game board's road (which is about every three or four spaces) comes with a series of poorly worded pop-up text windows that require several touch screen taps to clear. You'll literally see the same damn instructions hundreds of times and none of them are very helpful.

Even collected power-up objects that would seem to make you go further and faster - sneakers, a bike and a scooter - instead slow you or your opponent down to single space moves, drawing out each level to an even more slow and painful degree.

Making matters even worse, the touch screen periodically stops working in the middle of certain minigames for no apparent reason. We initially thought it was our DS but then experienced the same problem in several systems and decided it is either an annoying glitch or a secret attack only the game's programmers know about.

Playing through the single-player story game even once to unlock the boards will completely spoil any desire you may have to try the multiplayer game in much the same way the smell of burnt microwave popcorn can spoil a vanilla-scented office.