Racedriver: GRID

GRID World is the game's equivalent of career mode and begins with your rather foxy-sounding team manager laying down the fundamentals. It's a simple format: choose an event and meet the required objectives to earn cash and respect. For example, rank higher than a rival racing team and you get a tidy little bonus for your trouble. The wide range of racing disciplines - demolition derby, Formula 3, drift attack, and grip racing - keeps the gameplay fresh from race to race.

Demolition derby mode, in particular, is heaps of fun and shows off the game's superb damage engine. Bumpers go flying, bonnets crumple and sparks fly, adding a real sense of weight to the whole dynamic. What's best is that this mode comes complete with a mad race commentator who sounds like a moonshine glugging hick.

Once you earn yourself a few podiums, you begin to receive offers from sponsors. This is a very clever system, allowing you to pick which company logos you want emblazoned on your ride. However, each sponsor has parameters they want met in each race. For example, some will ask you to finish in no less than third place. Objectives get harder as the game progresses, so if you feel you won't rank high in a specific event, you need to make a careful choice about sponsors as they wont pay up if you fail.

Spinning out after clipping a corner is quite often the bane of racing games and can ruin the whole event. This is where GRID's best and most innovative feature comes into play. Wreck your car or fall behind and you can select 'Instant Replay' from the menu. This nifty slice of genius rewinds the game a few seconds, enabling you to select a safe restart point and take another crack at the section of track that scuppered you. You only get a few of these per race, so it's best to use them wisely. But all in all, a very cool feature.

GRID simply ups the ante for the racing games that take themselves too seriously, or try to be embarrassingly street. This is racing the way it should be done. [Dave Cook]