This game is great as an arcade game or a serious simulator, and its trying to be both...
User Rating: 6.7 | R: Racing PS2
This game lacks something called direction. It has decent graphics, decent soundtrack, and a near complete physics engine, but the game feels as if it started out as a simulator and was stripped of it last minute to make it more of an arcade feel. Gameplay (6/10) - The game has twitch controls and an incomplete physics engine. It neither is great in its drifting aspect or its realism physics aspect. Although the game runs pretty smoothly, these horrible tragedies bring the score down. Graphics (8/10) - Here is what doesn't make sense to me: Namco made a pretty good looking game, decently polished, near complete, pretty damn good for its time, and then let it go to waste in the gameplay. Each car looks pretty detailed, and although its definitely no Gran Turismo, this is a great looking third party game none the less. Muddy textures and some bland backgrounds hurt the score a little bit, but because the ground, the sky, the FMV sequences, and the cars look good, I'll look past that a little bit. Sound (7/10) - Nothing great, but adequate. The soundtrack is slim, the cars sound kind of weak, the wind sounds don't give a great realization of speed. Its better than some other games, but even though coming out a couple years after GT3, it still doesn't beat it in the sound department. The score could have been bumped up if it has more than a dozen tracks. Value (6/10) - You got a lame story, arcade, and vs. That's about it. You can have your fun with it, but unless you are a hardcore fan of the series, I'd wait until you can get it for 10 bucks. 
