THE SHORT: Super fast, loads of modes and options, tons of unlockable stuff, 2 players, custom soundtracks. It'd be perfect if not for a tiny bit of cheap.
THE LONG: First, let me get that "cheap" comment out of the way. To begin with, this game is fun. Very fun. I'm no racing fan, and I loved it. I played it for 9 straight hours yesterday when I bought it. I usually only do that for role playing games.
But it's during this extended play that I did start to notice something. I was learning the controls and doing progressively well, but then when I took on a 3-race Gran Prix challenge, I started to see that no matter how fast I went or how many times I hit them, my opponents were always right behind, or in front of me. What always kills a racing game is when the computer just gets cheap and makes the drivers experts who never screw up. Although this doesn't exactly happen, I have seen a few spots where it sure seems to. If I can constantly use turbo, not crash, and spin around corners without hitting the walls, should the other drivers just be expected to be right there doing just as well, only to whip right past me for good if I dare to make one mistake?
Well, I reiterate: This has happened to me on only 2 or 3 of the stages I've played through, and thankfully, out of a combined 15 hours so far, that's a pretty good ratio.
The rest of this game, I'm happy to say, has been fantastic. As I said, I don't like racing games, but upon seeing this one in action and reading the astonishingly positive reviews, I just had to check it out. You can tell I spent quite a bit of time with it.
There is just so much to do. You can race against the computer, take on a friend, try causing huge pileups in specific "crash junctions", and do other stuff like see how many cpu-controlled drivers you can smash off the road before your car finally expires. You can do any of this at any time, or take on the "world tour" mode, where something new, be it a track, car, award, etc., is unlocked after you successfully complete a course. And although certain courses are geared to be unlocked only after clearing the ones before it, for the most part you can sort of go back and forth between what stuff you want to do.
The action itself, whether in world tour or just freeform mode, is exhilirating. You are directly encouraged to do as much damage to other drivers as possible, while of course avoiding collisions yourself. Even after a good couple thousand destroyed opponents, it's still satisfying to ram a driver against a guardrail and watch the car flip into the air in slo-mo. The graphics and sounds are fantastic too, making every crash (even your own) seem realistic, and at some points, even cringe-worthy.
Crash mode is fun too, as you repeatedly get to try ramming your car into certain areas of a small track, trying to cause as much damage as you can in the time you're given. If you're lucky, you can maneuver into bonus points and things like that as well. It's a lot of destructive fun.
There's no big customization or fine tuning involved in this game. Over time you'll unlock dozens of cars (although several are pretty similar), and the only thing you have to worry about is which ones are the fastest and lightest. No other statistics necessary.
And as I said, there's a lot to do, because even though this is basically a fast, arcade style destruction derby, there are still tons and tons of things to unlock for incentive. You start with a few cars and a track or two, but by the end of my first night I had about 20 cars and a dozen tracks. That's about a third. There are rewards and feats to win, too. Cause another car to get rammed under a bus, that's a reward. Cause more than a million dollars in crash mode, that's a reward. Cause more than 40 wrecks. Wreck three cars at once. A huge list of your progress is kept and there's always something to do.
There are a few small but noticeable negatives about this game. For one, you can't re-map the buttons. The controls are good, and easy to learn, but since the R trigger is the accelerate button, your finger will be getting sore after a while, and it would've been nice to change this.
The custom soundtrack feature, obviously exclusive to the Xbox, is a fantastic thing to have in this game. But you can't use it during two-player, for what I can only assume are memory reasons. Also, I mentioned before that some of the tracks or individual races can really get frustrating, due to how invincible and perfect the computer seems to be. Again, this has only happened to me a couple times and the majority of the game has not felt so difficult so far. Besides, you can work on other progress such as unlocking cars and other things, then try that difficult track later. I don't want my races to be cakewalks, but after doing well all day, having a sudden group of wonder drivers eliminating me drops this game from a perfect score.
But, hey, what I've played so far has still been great fun. The minutiae of the game's modes and details are too many for me to go into here, but rest assured that although this game is essentially pick up and play, there is so much to do that you won't get sick of it after a half hour, such as similar games like Crazy Taxi (which, especially given the control scheme, feels a lot like this game). I think the best way I can put it is this: I just plain do not like racing games. But this one was fast enough, addicting enough, unique enough, agressive enough, deep enough, replayable enough, and FUN enough, for me to not only like it but to have spent double digit hours with it and still find absolutely worth playing.
If the game doesn't stay cheap like the part I'm hung up on now, then I will definitely assert that it's the best racer ever made.
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