I agree with the posters here who can appreciate a good arcade racer. It's really the first off road racer since the original Sega Rally to catch my attention.
Honestly, when I first tried it, I was a bit disappointed. But once I got used to the controls (love them now) and really got into the meat of the game, I realized how much each race has to it. The game's trick system, the drifting, turbo jumps, landing boosts, managing your turbo/heat, and the terramorphing feature all make for an incredible fun and deceptively deep title. Plus, the sense of speed is great.
No online hurts, but this is a great multiplayer game for a system launch. My friends and I are loving it. I just wish they threw in more options such as cpu opponants, 4 PLAYERS, LAN PLAY, and the option to just have a pure race to the finish.
The game definitely deserves a sequel addressing these issues.
As far as the graphics, I think you people are being overly harsh. It looks great on an SDTV. If you think about things like the wide open courses, impressive views (especially when in the air) and the awesome water, you see where alot of the hardware power went. Comparing it to F-Zero, a game with extremely tight tracks and a decidedly neon color pallette, is not fair. Two different styles entirely - although, yeah, they need to prioritize 60fps in the sequel and put some effort into the crash sequences.
Overall, this game is just alot of pure fun. I can't wait to get that $15 Kingston SD in the mail so I can rid my ears of the generic riffing though.
