"Fun yet boring at the same time"

I have always loved racing games. It was one of my favorite genres. When my uncle downloaded this game onto my PC, I was so excited to play it. I had fun for a bit, but I got bored slowly fast. Once I had beat the game, I just found out that there was just no point playing it anymore.

Story
Its a racing game. 90% of racing games today don't even have the slightest trace of a story. Basically, there are these little remote control cars racing. That's it, really.

Sound and Music
Almost nothing. When your racing, you do got the little cars making sounds like their actually remote control cars which is pretty neat. But some of the higher-class cars sound like a broken dirt bike, which gets really annoying after about a minute of racing.

Graphics
Very good. Ive seen better, but still most of the courses are pretty well designed, considering this game came out around 1999. Everything is in 3-D (well, almost everything). The only problem is the cars. While they made the cars look ok, the cars just dont fit in with the courses. If only they made the cars actually look real instead of cartoony...

Gameplay
The game play is actually ok, believe it or not. In a single race, you can race against 2-12 cars in a free for all. You got power ups, such as rockets, oil slick, stunner and other stuff to slow down your opponents. The Championship mode consists of 4 races. Well, they made it real bad. In order to move on to the next track, you must come at least 3rd. Other racing games let you come in any other position. Not only that, but if you're doing bad in a race or come 4th or under, you can retry. You got 3 or so retrys, and if you use all of them, you automatically come 8th place. And since you need to come 3rd or above, you can almost always win, which takes the fun out of the game. Multiplayer mode allows you to connect and race friends online. I have no idea how it works, but you need to do a number of stuff, and for what? A 2 lap race? Not worth it. They have a stunt arena to train up your skills, and to collect 20 stars. Amazingly, they made something hard. To get all of the stars you must have actual skill and you need to use a variety of cars to get all the stars. Getting all the stars nets you a new mode where you can race against tiny little cars. This is fun, since the cars are vulnerable to even the worst power ups, the sight of them falling and flying all over the place is funny. The game comes built in with a track editor so you can build your own track. Though you have only a few modules to choose from, there a re some modules that you may not find on the default tracks.

Replayability
There is not much replay value. You could try and unlock all the cars, all the tracks and have fun racing with the tiny cars, but after you beat it, you probably will never play it again unless you are incredibly bored.

Should I Buy/Download this?
Its up to you. Personally, I think that you should not even play this game, but you never know, you just might have fun with this game.

Pros
Great graphics
Fun tiny cars mode
Come with a track editor

Cons
Bad Championship mode
Sound is not too good
Multiplayer is bad
Almost no replay value

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/20/06