"The vehicle you start with is nothing special, scrap so to speak, but with enough cash accumulated and bonus missions completed you’ll soon be able to afford a top of the range ship with more powerful weapons."

The outside areas look fabulous with other craft zipping to and from locations completing their own hidden agendas. Police also patrol these areas making sure any wayward robot is arrested immediately. When you commandeer your first ship and enter the massive open areas you can’t fail to be impressed with the world that American McGee has created. Even though you are piloting a spaceship you can navigate around on “speed roads” which propels your ship slightly faster. Bonus rings also add another injection of speed. Fans of “Wipeout” the PS2 futuristic racer will be in heaven as during some of the mission based racing missions the influences are to glaring not to mention. Thankfully these bonus races are an absolute pleasure to play. With the forward thrust (right mouse button) and speed roads, scrapland ends up playing at a fantastic and pulsating pace. The vehicle you start with is nothing special, scrap so to speak, but with enough cash accumulated and bonus missions completed you’ll soon be able to afford a top of the range ship with more powerful weapons.

The main advantage that Scrapland possesses is that it comes with a fully featured multiplayer portion straight out of the box. It doesn’t feature every single option we would have liked to have seen (co-op play would have been superb) but it does feature multiplayer all the same, something which fans of the GTA series have been screaming for ever since the project went 3D.

Perhaps Scrapland’s only real fault is that the project at times does seem better suited to the console platform. Controls are simple and the movement seems far more responsive when used in conjunction with a controller. That’s not to say that fun cannot be gleaned from this PC version, far from it.

One thing is for certain; Scrapland rarely gives up its addictive grip however you choose to play. Whether it's due in part to the multiple mission structures, or the genuinely funny humor will in the end be up to you, but this one certainly deservers your attention either way. The upshot is that American McGee is truly back in the zone after that long wait and Scrapland deserves to be an instant hit on both the PC and Xbox.