If you're going to borrow ideas, borrow from the best. Midway's taken this to heart and combined some of the best parts of Twisted Metal and Grand Theft Auto 3 into a hybrid blaster that provides some of the most mindless fun I've had this year.

The storyline is the usual lightweight post-apocalyptic stuff that Road Warrior fan-fiction is made of - an evil disease ravages the land, humanity devolves into territorial gangs, free-form violence ensues. Let's be honest, nobody plays these games for the story, we want to blow shit up. Moving through different cities, your protagonist will battle against evil gangs while earning bigger and better weapons and cars. In a nice little homage to Halo's Warthog, you can occasionally jump into the back of a vehicle and man the chain-gun turret - but usually, it's you behind the wheel, serving up hot lead pancakes like a murderous IHOP cook.

Now, the free-form gameplay that GTA is famous for is toned down a bit here - no jumping out of your vehicle in Roadkill. At least Midway's title is standing on its own feet in this regard, focusing the battle squarely on the vehicles involved and not being just another GTA-clone (True Crime, I'm looking squarely at you). Whipping through the streets, chasing down the worst kind of scum while running over pedestrians is exciting enough, especially considering the arcade physics that Roadkill employs. It's very forgiving, allowing you to pull off some amazing moves without a lot of effort. It's all about the action of car combat and frenzied action, and Roadkill has it in spades, thanks to the auto-targeting nature of your weapons. Don't worry about running out of ammunition, it isn't going to happen.

You play the single-player of the game in free-form missions, delivered GTA-style, finding unlockables and stirring up the pot as much as you like. The game earns its "M" rating legitimately - this game is bloody and foul-mouthed to the nth degree. The subtleties that are found in GTA aren't quite as well done here - it's over the top on occasion, but still more humorous than not. There is a radio, just like GTA, with some great 70's and 80's rock, along with rap and talk radio. Again, the commercials and DJ scripting isn't up to GTA's standards, but the effort put forth is pretty good, if a little crass. Is Roadkill better than Twisted Metal and GTA? Well, not being able to use your car as a melee weapon is a bit of drawback - I want to ram opposing players with my Truck of Doom, but collision damage is pretty well non-existent. You'll just bounce off or slow down, at the worst, and despite the over-the-top atmosphere inherent in the genre, it seems a little unrealistic. The graphics are sharp on PlayStation 2, but there can be a fair amount of slowdown when the action gets particularly frenetic.

Roadkill harkens back to the visceral arcade action of Chase HQ and Twisted Metal, with a little bit of GTA thrown in for good measure. It's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but for good old fashioned blasting fun with some friends or on your own, it's hard to beat.

I'm lovin' it.