Need For Speed around the World.
The cars are relative to the selections of previous incarnations such as Most Wanted and Carbon except now the cars are made race specific depending on which one they are used for in showdowns or what mode the player selects upon purchase. The starter vehicle is a locked blueprint like other won/selected vehicles throughout the storyline.
The storyline is rather flat compared to the interlinked storyline of MW and Carbon or even the NFSU2 storyline. At least in previous incarnations, your character had some sort of realistic and entertaining purpose to drive your way to the top. Here its basically eliminating five so-called 'kings' particularly Ryo, who as laughable as the NFSU2 boss as a character. As for driving I rank him somewhere between Razor and Darius, closer to Razor than Darius.
The cars are low end until the middle or latter half of the game. After that its more selective and certain tracks breed certain frustrations as you will really need alternate cars for every race type. Grip races are fairly standard like Circuit races. Drifting and dragging have come closer to their real world counterparts becoming easier for someone like me who has had past difficulties managing those types except for drifting in NFSU2.
Drags have become more like NHRA style races.
Top Speed and Speed Challenge is like Sprint except you are more like to wreck your vehicle especially in Nevada, the most irritating track series to go through at any stage of the game.
The locations are inventive at the first pass but become mundane. The opponents have a slant advance, which is somewhat balanced. The assists are nice for awhile, but eventually mess with the car's performance.
The ads are excessive and on PS2 its difficult to match the shifts in road until maybe a minute or two before the curves are thrown your way. The kings are hardly so if you really excel at NFS driving.
Its a gamble for direction change yet its still a decent racer if you enjoy a variety of cars to switch between on the fly.