Midway should never have messed with the formula for its Rush racing franchise. Last year's abominable console game, L.A. Rush contains less arcade thrills and too much street racing. The company set out to make up for this with an improved version of the game for the PSP, simply called Rush, but the developers merely added new items instead of working on fixing the problems that made the game such a pain to begin with.

The story mode eerily resembles a rejected episode of Miami Vice. It's a typical revenge tale where a high amount of cars are stolen from a fancy garage. Instead of filing a police report, the game's main character decide to get the cars back the old-fashioned way -- through a ploy involving several high-speed races. The quality of the story mode is questionable due to the lame dialogue, forgettable characters and the constant ads for West Coast Customs.

Thankfully, there are other modes that make Rush worth a try, if only for a little while. The game features a Stunt Mode that actually harkens back to the classic days of the Rush series, with a variety of ramps to go off of and various flips and tricks to pull off. However, the neon-lit settings of the stunt stages and the various ramps feel out of place compared to the realistic, mean streets of L.A. -- it's like Midway wanted it both ways, and it feels disjointed. Fortunately, Midway's managed to pull off a nice trick that allows multiple players to jump in via Wi-Fi to compete in some interesting stunt competitions and races. Sadly, two copies of the game are required -- game sharing is not an option here.

Also a new Cruise mode skips over the lame story elements and instead just gets right to the racing. Here, you can dodge cars in a vicious race for first place. This follows more closely to the original rhythm of the Rush series than L.A. Rush did, and it does benefit the game -- even if it's just a minor improvement.