Pros: Great graphics and sound with huge number of cars and races.
Cons: A few minor irritations.
The bottom line: A brilliantly addictive game which is a mix of arcade and simulation getting the playability just right. Will keep racing fans playing for weeks.
Having just bought myself a Dreamcast I have been addicted to this game recently, hence my lack of time surfing over the past few days.

The package is very slick indeed from the introductory video clips to the level of detail within the game itself. There are hundreds of races to take part in and dozens of different cars to drive. You can take part in individual races or time trials or the centrepiece of the game, the street racing itself which involves driving your way through from easy beginnings up to the ultimate skill level.

There are a total of 25 chapters of racing each with 10 events. These events are split into categories such as hot laps where you have to try to complete a lap within a set time, timed events where you have to complete a certain number of laps within a time, challenges where you have to drive to a set criteria and of course actual races.

After finishing an event you are given "kudos" points depending on how well you did. Gaining sufficient kudos allows you to progress to the next race and eventually chapter. On some special events gaining sufficient kudos will reveal cheats, extra cars or bonus tracks.

One thing to bear in mind is if you crash during the events you will lost Kudos and this can be so much a penalty for the rougher drivers that you actually "gain" negative kudos! You will gain special bonus kudos for "style" which is defined by power sliding the vehicle you control. Should keep the joy riders happy anyway!

Before you actually start your street racing career you need some wheels. You can't simply walk up to a vehicle and gain access with a screwdriver in this world however, you need to prove you can drive the car to add it to your garage. This is done by completing a lap within a set time limit. First time you try this it is not easy at all, but you can get away with colliding with walls etc. so that makes is more manageable.

All the cars are based on real models, although their performances a re slightly questionable. For example later in the game you can drive a Peugeot 206 which does 0-60 mph in around 5 seconds, obviously not the basic model.

At the start you can choose from the Fiat Barchetta, MGF or Mazda MX5. The best in my opinion is the MGF but you need to consider more than just the raw performance of the car when making decisions on which to drive. The Barchetta would be better for beginners as it is much easier to drive, the MGF being quite "tail happy" does tend to over steer if you are too ambitious with the accelerator.

All the cars look very realistic and do handle well, not quite how they would do in real life but more accurately than the average arcade game. MSR has struck the balance very well between a pure simulator and arcade game, combined with the analogue control being used this gives a playable yet realistic feeling game.

The graphics are simply brilliant. You drive around London, Tokyo and San Francisco with each city having three distinctly different areas for it's tracks. For example driving around Westminster you can see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament and other well known landmarks. The only inaccuracy here is the absence of rush hour traffic, maybe a good thing! As the tracks used in the game are on public roads, with different layouts there are around 300 tracks from a mere 100 yards long up to 3 miles. Look out for those traffic islands is my main piece of advice!

Sounds are the usual engine and tyre screeches but a very nice touch is the in car radio. You listen to what seems to be real radio stations complete with adverts and the music is either good or funny. On Capital Jazz (London) they play some very good soul type of music which would do well in the charts, in fact it may already of been released as far as I know. In San Francisco there is a Country radio station which plays a very funny song which has lyrics which make me chuckle, the rock station is slightly less funny.

The game is very smooth, you can play it at 60mhz if your TV supports this and it makes the whole experience look beautiful, the sound is also better through headphones. A nice touch, and the game is full of them, is that if you are playing at night the races take place at night, depending on the time zone you are in.

The game also has different weather effects, this is a good feature as driving in a downpour is much harder than the dry and the car you use which normally wins in the dry can become undriveable when wet. If this happens to you as it did to me it's time to rethink the strategy.

Only drawback is that it does slow the game down when it rains, it's like playing through treacle and it even rains inside tunnels! This is a relatively small drawback as it only affects a small number of races I found I was quickly able to compensate for this deficiency.

This is the most addictive race game I have ever played (and I have played a few!), as I have hardly stopped playing it for 2 weeks now. I am on the 21st chapter out of 25 and once completed I will be going on to the Internet to see if I can beat some records, look out for me! I have yet to check out the online options so cannot comment on them but will be adding to this review as I do.