A word of advice to all PC gamers: avoid this shoddy port at all costs.
After I installed this game and started playing it, I quickly noticed heavy stuttering during the races. I would experience framerate drops to no more than 1 or 2 fps multiple times during races. Even on the moments when the framerate did not drop to such drastic figures, it was still generally all over the place, making it very hard to finish even one race in this game. I'm running the game on an ATI Radeon HD5770 that should be perfectly capable of handling it. But even then, lowering the graphics settings did not take care of the problem.
My next step was the official SEGA forums, where I found a thread in which many other PC gamers had similar complaints. Eventually, one of the game's developers explained the root of the problem: due to the extremely versatile nature of the PC platform, the game was not optimised for many graphics cards. This is by no means an valid excuse, seeing as there are many developers who ARE able to make their games run across this extremely versatile platform, whether the titles in question are console ports or not. It gets worse: the only solution offered by the developer was to race with every character on every track and use every weapon. Because what apparently causes this extreme stuttering is the game's engine taking a second to recognise and process the new event. While I doubt this solution even works (I still experienced problems racing with the same character on the same track multiple times), it is also completely unpractical, seeing as executing this solution would probably take well over 30 hours, perhaps even more.
So before considering getting this game, realise that it is a sloppy console port as can be and may very well end up being almost literally unplayable on your PC. There are apparently some graphics cards that do handle the game appropiately, but judging by the different hardware mentioned in the complaint topic on SEGA's forums, buying this game is a gamble you will not want to take. The worst part is that, judging by his light-hearted response, the developer barely recognises the problem as being a problem, instead pointing towards the versatility of the PC platform (which doesn't prevent legions of PC games from running fine on any rig that meets the system requirements). The solution is then presented as if it were as simple as changing a few options in the menu, while it is really a near impossible chore that is not even a solution because it would totally kill the game experience well before you can start enjoying the game in the way it was supposed to be enjoyed. So do yourself a favour and avoid this sloppy, broken, unworthy port. Instead, check out any of the console versions for a great, unhindered racing experience.