It's sort of like Gran Turismo 3 but had a story thrown in - although not as
involved as Pro Race Driver.
Basically you stumble on an abandoned garage with a bunch or prototype car
blueprints. You pick one and have it built then you race it. The more you race
the more notority you get. You create a brandname and a logo and the higher you
place in the races the more cars you sell. The more you sell the more new
prototypes you can build until you expand into a multi-model car factory turning
out assembly line concept cars.
Along the way you will get mini-challenges from other manufacturers, magazines
like Car and Driver, and even a foreign sheik who is looking to buy lots of
sports cars.
The graphics are outstanding - as you might expect for an Xbox exclusive with a
good vareity of tracks (city, mountains, speedway), and hundreds of cars to
build and unlock. No***pit view but there is a nice HOOD view that shows the
terrain reflected in real-time. There is car damage but it appears to be visual
only - I never saw a lack in performance although you can get damaged enough to
where a shower of sparks trails your car. Lot of fancy effects like lens flares
on the headlights and sun, dark shadows, smoke, sparks, reflections, and
bump-mapped surfaces that make the pavement look as real as possible.
Physics are pretty good and car handling is great with either a wheel (using
Madcatz) or the gamepad. Realism is about the same as Project Gotham and you
are neither rewarded or penalized for good/bad driving. This means there is a
LOT of rubbing going on.
Game is huge with at least 20-30 series with 3-4 races each for the Dream Mode,
and then you have the arcade mode to play all the cars you unlock and there is a
nice 2-player mode. Definitely one of the best racers you can play on the Xbox
right now.