Hong Kong needs your help! An evil Yakuza crime boss is bringing his dirty trade to the city's colourful streets, and there's only one way you can stop him - by getting in a fast car and smashing the crap out of everything! No subtlety here, it's just all-out, high-speed, big-bang blockbuster carnage, with you at the controls of a bunch of souped-up autos carrying a licence to wreck.

As you'll know if you've had a look at this issue's Game Disc, Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions looks absolutely incredible. Abso-freaking-lutely in-freaking-credible, to be freaking honest. We've tried our best to capture its amazing look in our screenshots but, while some of them may look great, it's only when you see the graphics in motion that they really look special.

The city in which the whole game is set (a semi-accurate, stylised Hong Kong) is enormous and completely believable. It's made up of individual districts, massive, solid buildings, tiny market stalls, vehicles and pedestrians going about their business.

Everything is bathed in lighting of a kind you've never seen before. The glare of the sun bouncing off shop windows, casting shadows across the streets and neon signs buzzing luminous colours onto everything in their vicinity give the whole game world a thumpingly solid feel. The car you drive looks amazing as well, and even reflects the scenery in its bodywork, as in Project Gotham Racing.

Plus you can use said car to smash the crap out of everything in the aforementioned city, with bits and pieces of everything shattering, bouncing and exploding all over the shop in spectacular, ludicrously colourful style.

Special effects by the dozen are then smeared on top of the entire game to give it a televisual quality - things in the distance appearing out of focus, heat haze from your engines causing the scenery to shimmer, virtual views wobbling to give a hand-held camera feel.

Most of these effects have been seen on their own in games before, each time standing out as a title's defining visual element. Wreckless does everything at once, and it makes you sit up and notice just how much of a step forward from other consoles Xbox is making, in terms of raw processing power.

But why go on about the graphics so much before talking about the actual game itself? Because the way Wreckless looks and the way its virtually living city moves as you plough through it, means that the visuals practically are the game.

There are two storylines to follow, one featuring two dizzy female cops and the other featuring two dizzy male spies. Each path is made up of a bunch of missions involving defeating the evil Yakuza gangsters.

Missions come in two forms - racing around the streets smashing up Yakuza cars and scenery, or guiding your vehicle around a tricky series of tunnels, pathways and ledges, much like a platform game.

And there's really not much more depth to it than that. The storylines are nonsense, with cut-scenes establishing the plot via the medium of gibberish scripts and rubbish jokes. Even the mission explanations themselves are worthless.

"Somebody's stolen something and is planning to do something-or-other with it! Stop them before they get to somewhere-or-other or something will happen!" Yeah, whatever. In other words: "Smash the crap out of everything with a red mark around it before the timer runs out."

The thing is, deep, movie-like plots and revolutionary gameplay ideas aren't always necessary. As long as something's fun, we're happy. Unfortunately though, quite a few of Wreckless's twenty relatively short missions fall on the wrong side of fun. They end up on the side marked 'frustrating', in fact...

Negotiating an underground passage full of twisting ledges and moving platforms in a heavy sports car is just plain fiddly, and when there's a great big puddle of magic water waiting to send you back to the start of the section if you mess up, it just gets annoying. You'll find yourself simply battling through just for the satisfaction of never having to play the level ever again.

There are other things that test your ability to remain calm. After eventually working your way to the top of a massive construction site, dodging ram-happy Yakuza cars on the way up, you've only got a few seconds to make it across a little bridge to the next section.

You carefully edge your car forwards, looking around for more danger. And then you fall through a hole you couldn't see because what you were actually supposed to do was go across the bridge quickly, thus falling all the way to the bottom of the building only to watch the timer tick helplessly to zero. Will you be able to stop yourself throwing your brand new Xbox controller at the floor?

Unfortunately, these frustrating bits feel unnecessary - as if the game wasn't completely finished and someone didn't have the time to tidy things up properly.

So the platform bits don't really work too well. A shame, but is it really the end of the world? Thankfully not. Wreckless's other component - speeding around smashing the heck out of everything - is tremendously good entertainment, especially when it looks and feels as great as it does here.

Throwing the vehicles around the city, ploughing through scenery, sending civilians scattering for their virtual lives, setting off chains of explosions and causing massive pile-ups is fun. Brilliant fun, actually.

All the vehicles are great in their own way, and trying to track down the hidden bonus-mobiles is very satisfying. Finishing the piffling 20 missions isn't much of a challenge at all, providing you can be bothered to battle through the frustrating sections.

But going back into the city in a new-found tank and causing mass destruction before watching it all again in the utterly astounding replay mode is something that a sane person can never tire of.

And that's basically what Wreckless is - a beautiful playground in which to indulge your action movie fantasies. It's rather like a high-tech version of ramming toy cars through homemade cereal-box buildings off cardboard ramps.

A lack of features makes it feel quite empty. There's no 'free roam' mode, no way of watching replays in slow-motion, no way of placing scenery and cameras where you want them and no way of turning the timer off.

But the overall look and feel of Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions make it the best thing for showing off the fact that, with an Xbox under your telly, you own the most powerful console available to man.

1. Looks stunning. Real, at times.
2. Wonderful crash physics.
3. So much going on!

1. Too few missions and reply features
2. Rubbish story and platform bits

Power Does things graphically that no machine other than Xbox can hope to do. Absolutely stunning.

Style Some brilliant graphical touches, but the game has a definite unfinished feel to it.

Immersion Tricky, slightly slow control at times, but you'll lose yourself in a world of destruction.

Lifespan A disappointingly short game lacking features, but exploring and smashing stuff will always be fun

Summary An awesome demonstration of what Xbox can do, and great fun. But not enough game to make it an purchase essential.