Street racing meets Street Fighter.
The game is divided up into parts, but the one you will spend the most if not all of your time is the Quest mode. Here you drive the highways of Tokyo and find rival opponents. Once found, you flash your high beams, and the battle begins. You each get Spirit Points (think a Street Fighter power bar) and must race. There are no finish lines, you have to drive faster than your opponent and get ahead for a certain amount of time to drain their power. This is not as easy as it sounds as of the cars are quite fast, especially the Wanderers. Good thing you have an enormous amount of cars and parts (both for under the hood and the body) to customize your ride. This why the game is so fun. You have an almost limitless amount of things you can do to get your car feeling and looking just the way you want it. From there you just drive around and try to take out all of your opponents for which there are over 300. It took me a long time to complete the game the first time through. It is well worth it.
The graphics for the cars are great. They aren’t licensed, but the look like the real thing so if you know a little about cars, you can easily pick out a Lancer, Skyline, or Supra among many others. The streets look pretty good even today. The game is a little plain, but what is there is beautiful except for a little bit of aliasing here and there.
The sound is ok. The “fight” tune is really cool and will stick with you, but the rest of the soundtrack is pretty forgettable.
This game is great. An instant racing classic for street racing fans. Loads of customization, tons of enemies, a neat career mode, along with great graphics make for a sweet racing game. Pick this up if you even remotely like street racing games. You won’t regret it.