This game does a lot of things right...there are tons of great customization options for audio, video and car and they are meaningful options.This game does a lot of things right...there are tons of great customization options for audio, video and car and they are meaningful options. On the high side for games made back then, obviously competing with the GT scene. Next we have gameplay. Superficially it's great. Visuals and speed are decent, steering wheel support works well and feels good but then out of nowhere the game decides to cheat to make the game difficult, challenging and offer up some heartbreaks. The game is punishing in this sense, one small touch of the rail at a high speed or a slight miscalculation, or even a small bump from a competitors car and the game will not only make you swerve, which I feel is fine, but it also almost always decides to throw you into the opposite direction the track is going. It seems almost as if the game won't stop your swerve until you are 180 degrees no matter how you try to counter whether by counter steering, speed reduction or any combination of the two. Too many times I felt this happened as punishment for no valid reason based on physics. On top of that the commentary will tell you pretty much flat out you are brutal and worthless at the end of the race, and it's terrible commentating on top of that. Most annoying commentary I've seen in a game. Just the style of commentary and how they rub it in is offensive. I don't mind this in other games where they lay it out honestly but in a fun or humorous tone. Here it is just insulting, and again mocking since the game cheats. Honestly this is my only real issue with the game. As you can see I took off a major score to this game for that sole reason. Too bad this game wasn't developed nowadays a simple patch could really fix this game easily. The graphics and game concepts are decent, maybe some of the ways you spend your earned money on car damage and gas are a bit far fetched (but reasonable enough), but the game is truly ruined by the botched scripted nature of turning you around 180 degrees. Meanwhile, Ai cars can crash and they are back up and running on the coarse drastically easier and faster than you can achieve. All in all the racing is actually pretty good, there is no rubber banding effect in this game and you really feel the competition until those rediculous moments that force you into a ruin of an entire race, and again, sometimes not at all your fault. I do believe it's possible to get really good at this game, take the lead and race a solid game and so I do think this game would have a great sense of gratification if one was willing to become really good at this game but for me a single ill timed cheat is just too infuriating when other programming choices for competitive gameplay could have opted for instead. Oddly enough I am going to keep this game for future entertainment and try it again someday when I'm more in the mood for the perfection this game demands, it may actually be a diamond in the rough but for now it's annoyed me.… Expand
