I first heard about this game and saw the preview video for it when it was posted on Sony's PSN. It looked intriguing, and like it could be quite a bit of fun, so when it came out and had a downloadable demo, I gave it a spin around the block.

Gameplay
This is pretty much where the focus of the game should be, and there are some good and some bad things about it. First, the good. There are 32 modes of play, though I don't think that is entirely accurate, since it seems like there's only 16 modes, and they each have a slow speed with easier goals to achieve, and a turbo mode with harder goals to achieve, and the majority of them are fun to play. The game is also a blast to play with other people, especially if you're all relatively the same sort of skill level. Some of the modes seem destined to be multiplayer favorites, while others work better in single player. The tournament mode is difficult, and should keep you busy for more than a few hours. Then you can jump in and just run around on any track in any mode that you have open to practice or to just play one of a certain kind of race if you don't want to do the whole tournament thing.

Now the bad: The biggest downside is lack of online multiplayer and also the lack of record keeping on the home PS3 system itself, so you could challenge your friends. In addition to that, there are only 10 tracks, and while they all have a good deal of variety, it seems like they could have put in another 5-10 more and still varied them all just as easily. Also, at times, it can be hard to see exactly what lane your in, which is rough when you're zipping around the track and think you are in the right lane to avoid other cars and then you slam into one because one of the two of you weren't in the lane you thought you were in. I have problems with the car jumping over 2 lanes whenever I only want it to move over 1, so the controls seem a bit oversensitive as well, though you do learn to adjust for that.

Graphics
Hard to say anything too good or bad about the graphics. It's a top down racer, but everything is bright and crisp when outputted in 1080p, and the few tracks that are there are detailed. But there's also not much scenery in the spaces of the screen the track doesn't cover, not that you have time to look anywhere else besides the track, anyway.

Sound
Your standard engine noises and some crashing noises. It sounds good, but isn't anything spectacular. It does fit the game pretty well, though.

Difficulty and Length
Maybe it's just me, but this game seems to be hard. Mostly due to the high speeds you end up zooming around the track at, it's hard to keep track of where you are, and where everything else is. In addition to that, some of the standards you have to reach to get a gold cup in the tournament mode are hard to get to by themselves, but you typically have to do it on multiple tracks in a row to get a gold cup for the entire set. Also, with 32 modes and 10 tracks, you most likely won't get bored too quickly, though it could use some more tracks.

Replayability
Some good and some bad here. First off, there is an online challenge mode with high scores for each of the 32 modes. Unfortunately, it's only for a set track, so there's only 32 challenges instead of 320, which I feel there should have been. It also supports up to 7 players, but only locally, and there's no online multiplayer, which hurts, because with online multiplayer, this would have been a much better game. Also, there is no way to tell even on your own machine, what your best scores are on each track for each mode, so you can't even challenge yourself that easily. With a few minor tweaks and additions, they could have given this game almost endless replayability, and made this a game that you would keep coming back to for a few quick minutes of high speed racing fun, but unless they put out an update, which I hope they do, it'll probably turn into a game where if you have some people over, it'll be fun to play for a little bit, and maybe you'll pick it up to try to raise your ranking in the online challenge mode or else just run a couple of races in your favorite mode.

Final Score
I personally really like it, but I can understand why people wouldn't.  It's just a downloadable game, so you can't rent it, but I would definitely advise you to download the demo before you buy it. Though at $6.99, it really is easily worth the price, even with the downsides.

Game Score

B-

Reviewed By: Contributed