City Drive

City Drive is a free browser driving game in the open-city style: a whole downtown of white office blocks, red brick and blue-painted walls under an overcast sky to drive around with nothing to unlock first, a pier full of stunt ramps, and a harbour where container runs are stacked 48 metres above the street. Your first visit drops you straight into the first Stunt course, with the clock waiting until you touch the controls; when you finish it, the level menu opens and shows all three modes - Free Ride, Stunt and Container - and the one garage that all three pay into. After that the game opens on that menu with your last pick ready, and the mode badge in the top-left corner brings it back at any time. It runs in any browser on a phone or a desktop, with nothing to install and no account.

Free Ride is the city itself. Traffic drives the grid of avenues and stops for working traffic lights, the parks on the hillside hold real ramps you can hit at any speed, and the stunt pier at the seafront has its own permanent set of kickers and a jump box. Air time pays in Free Ride - the longer you stay off the ground, the more you earn when you land. Nothing chases you and there is no damage penalty: a crash dents the bodywork and shakes the camera, and the dents slowly iron out after a stretch without hits.

The cars drive like cars rather than arcade toys. There is an automatic gearbox - the tachometer shows the gear, and the revs drop on every upshift - and the weight moves: the body leans out of a corner, the nose dips under hard braking and the tail squats when you launch. Grip is generous but not endless, so a corner taken much too fast still washes wide; brake in a straight line, turn in, then feed the power back. Space locks the rear wheels, and a handbrake flick at city speed swings the tail round a tight corner - let go of it and the car gathers itself back into line within a second instead of sliding on sideways. The cars are built differently too: the rear-drive Coupe is the fastest and the most eager to slide, while the tall Pickup and Van need the longest distance to stop and lean the most.

The open blocks in the middle of the grid are parking lots: striped bays ringed by concrete jersey barriers, with gaps where the side streets come in, and a good share of the bays taken by parked cars. One lot is the police lot, where a row of black-and-white cruisers stands with light bars on the roof. The same cruiser waits at the top of the garage: buy it and G switches its siren on - the light bar flashes red and blue and the wail follows you through the streets - and G again switches it off. The minimap marks the two nearest stunt ramps with a JUMP diamond, so there is always somewhere to aim for.

Stunt mode is sixteen courses built on the pier. Each one is a line of ramps, platforms and floating rings: fly through every ring in order, then stop on the chequered finish pad. The first course is a single ramp and a single ring; later ones step up onto platforms, chain two ramps so the second only works at the speed of the first, bend into U-turns you take with the handbrake, and end with a long grand tour. Every course opens by telling you what it wants - how many rings, then the finish pad - a counter under the timer ticks the rings off, the minimap draws the whole route, a GPS marker always points at the next ring, and the ring you need glows brighter than the rest. Roll onto the finish pad too fast and the game tells you to brake: the level only ends once you have stopped on it.

Container mode is sixteen runs laid out on shipping containers high above the harbour district. The line is the challenge rather than the speed: rows narrow to a single container width, gaps open between stacks, rows step down and turn corners, and the last course climbs a container ramp to a narrow summit. Drive off the edge and you fall, and the run restarts from the beginning. Both level modes unlock in order - clear a level to open the next one.

Every cleared level pays. The first clear pays the full reward, a replay pays a quarter of it, and finishing under the target time multiplies either by one and a half. The money goes to the garage, which has six cars - Sedan, Coupe, SUV, Pickup, Van and, as the most expensive, a police cruiser, each with its own grip, weight and top speed - and seven tabs of parts: twelve paint colours, rims, a lip or wing spoiler, stripes, flames or a race number, a whale, skull or star sticker, tinted or blacked-out windows, and wheel camber up to nine degrees. A part is bought once and can then be fitted to any car you own, and the car you set up in the garage is the one you drive in every level.

The first time you drive, a full keyboard map shows every key the game uses - press any key to close it, and hold Tab to see it again. The camera cycles between a chase view, a far chase view and a hood view with C, and H switches to a cinematic camera that cuts between street angles. R restarts the current level, or in Free Ride sets the car back on its wheels facing along the road. Your money, cars, parts and cleared levels are saved on your own device.