Some may ask, how do you take such a deep and philosophical character such as Jim Davis' Garfield and turn it into a racing game? Surely such a pitch is destined for disaster but I must beg to differ. Now, I am a man who is passionate about his gaming terminal, having sunk thousands into creating the perfect gaming machine, as finely tuned as a Formula 1 car or a grand piano. So, naturally, I set the graphics setting to "Very High" Yeah, my PC can take it, it has taken on Tripple A releases of the highest graphical settings at 60fps so a little Garfield game won't be any challenge right? Heh, you know little about Garfield if you think your £10,000 computer is gonna get you anywhere out of Loser town. The mere philosophical questions the game asks your computer to ponder makes this game unfit for anything but Space-grade, NASA produced machines to handle. Just a single race in and my computer looked like it was playing a powerpoint presentation given by a five-year-old with autism who didn't know what a right arrow key was. I was crawling, and you can't win these extreme races by crawling.

I accepted my fate, I turned the graphics down to very low and closed down every other app running on my terminal at that time, except for my media player that was playing Scott Joplin's 'The Entertainer' at x2 speed on repeat. I began the game and I felt like I was playing a 2005 game that had been poorly ported to the PSP, but I was fast, and that's all that counts.

I began the tutorial race. "Heh, this is easy, kid's stuff," I said to myself. I completed all the tasks as asked without breaking a sweat and managing to keep one hand on my stiffy at the exact same time. Then they introduced my NPC competitors and Jon Arbuckle flew past me like an Eagle high on crack. Everything I knew about my very existence was brought into question when I went sprawling to last place. I always thought myself as a master of racing games? I had spent hours as a child in the local arcade ramming all my spare change into large racing cabinets while I set the highest high scores ever set in human history. I would sit in those big cushioned seats with Bruce Springsteen blasting from my Sony Walkman. I was a speed demon with the precise control as a neurosurgeon or a man who is shaving his pubes with a cut-throat razor. Each turn and gearshift were acted out with pure sophistication conjured only by a man with experience and a national talent for the road. And that man is me.

Yet, here I was, getting my ass handed to me like a wounded soldier caught in a bomb blast. I wasn't getting it just handed to me, Odie was serving it up on a red cushion and a royal platter. I was humiliated. But I was also determined. I withdrew every penny from my savings account and hopped onto a flight to Brazil.

I arrived at night. At the airport, I hopped into a taxi and lit a cigarette. The driver asked me my business in Brazil. I told him I had come to get fast, he then said something in his strange dark skin language I didn't understand, but I got the gist, he told me I would never get first place in Garfield Kart. So ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ killed him and stole his wallet.

Later that very same night I found myself deep within the Amazon rainforest, completely naked, I clothes would only slow me down and I needed to be fast. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness it grew sensitive to even the dimmest of light. Reflections of the moon from the moisture on the leaves shone like tiny pin pricks in my vision. That's when I saw it, two shining globes of yellow and red, lying in patient waiting behind a wall of leaves, each the size of the body pillows I cuddle at night to take the pain of loneliness away. Our glances met and it's soft breath's deformed into a piercing roar. Not the mighty roar of a lion, but instead the knife-like hiss-howl hybrids of a Jaguar.

In that moment of sheer, overwhelming terror, everything around me ground to a halt, the Jaguar froze in mid-air, the blood hungry look of pure anger that scarred along its face levitated just a foot away from mine. It was in that moment I began to learn what it was like to be fast. Kronos hit play once more and I could hear the streams flow once more. I brought my right arm thundering around to meet the attacker, in the damn FACE. My incredible speed took the beast off-guard and it went spiralling to the side, flailing in mid air before all 140kg of its monstrous mass smacked into the moss covered stone. I was fast, but it was faster. Within moments it regained all of its power and came shooting towards me like a bullet, I leapt over it and onto it's back as it shot under me.

It was then, as I wrapped my arms around its throat did I realise the creature had cut me with its initial attack. A large incision, about seven inches in length was cut like a deep trench in my forearm, blood seeping steadily. Now it was my turn. I tightened my grip like a hungry anaconda around the Jaguar's neck, it hissed and howled at me in rage and spun violently, trying to throw me off like a bull you see in those crappy Western style restaurants that they sometimes do competitions for. Only this wasn't a hunk of poorly made plastic with a motor and soft padding underneath to catch your fall. This was an organic being with no other primary desires than to destroy me. How pathetic. Just as I could feel it's breath shortening he leapt up onto it's back and slammed down onto me, nearly cracking every bone in my body. Recovery time was minimal, I had to be fast. Already I could see it's unsheathed claws come racing towards me like Jon Arbuckle once had. Garfield Kart felt like a lifetime away from me now. That's when I saw it. The Jaguar represented Garfield, and I was Jon, I was faster, I was the superior being, I WAS THE OWNER. I'M WHO FEEDS YOU, I'M WHO KEEPS YOU ALIVE AND KEEPS YOU WARM. AAAAAAGGHGHHH.

I rolled over, all pain left my mind along with any human sanity. I resorted to the same primaeval functions the Jaguar was running on. Both of us halted, eying each other with caution and respect. We were Gladiators, but we had not been thrust into a Colosseum by a tyrannical Roman emperor, we were simply encapsulated in nature, put there by whatever mad God rules over this cosmos. Then I felt it, beneath my left heel was nothing, I dared a glance around. We were on the edge of a cliff, a seemingly endless drop hung bellow us, any bottom was hidden by a canopy of trees and a thick mist. When I had brought my head around again the Jaguar was in mid air once more, this time with no anger, but a villainous grin that said "I win"

Slow down there, Garfield. Not quite.

As it shot towards me I slid to the side like a bolt of lightning. I was at one spot one instant, another the next. I was too fast for Garfield. I spun and slammed the palm of my hand - with my fingers bent and flattened so that they were all flush - into the Jaguar's side, I felt a crack and could see the aftermath of my attack of stunning speed ripple through the beast's skin. A howl of pain and realisation when it saw the drop beneath that greeted and threatened to eat it whole. It spiralled around like a terrified fidget spinner and caught its claws in my calf, I screamed in agony as I was pulled down into the abyss along with Garfield. I was fast; but, alas, not fast enough.

There was this part here that I had written where I was found by tribesmen, made king and re-created Garfield comic strips in stone tablets until I found a man faster than me but then review would be too long.

Once back home in England, I sat down at my terminal, now drenched in a thick layer of dust. I turned it on and went to play Garfield Kart. I had defeated the fastest animal alive and ran at record breaking speeds nearly every day of the past five years. I was fast, but was I fast enough? I booted it up, hit "Single Race" and began. By the end, I had come 3rd Place. That was fast enough for me.

10/10, very fun game, would recommend.