Speed Busters' track design is one of the best I've seen in an arcade racing game, all tracks take place in different locations like California, Canada, Mexico and others, each one of them is full-filled with shortcuts (yeah, lots of them), but unlike other games in which you can decide whether to take the shortcut or not, in Speed Busters, you've better to take them and learn how to take all the possible advantage because the game is pretty difficult even in the easiest skill.

Don't be surprised if a dinosaur appears in the middle of the race and obstructs the way, or if an UFO tries to take you down, animated stuff like this is what makes the difference in Speed Busters, of course they appear depending in the location you are racing.

There are three different types of play in Speed Busters, the arcade mode which is pretty much like a practice mode, you can play with any car and track you want (if un-locked), choose race's weather, number of opponents, difficulty and all that sort of things. The Championship mode, here you'll have to try to beat your opponents so that you can get a nice revenue, buy stuff for the car, repair it or buy a new one and refill the nitro. Finally, there is the Multiplayer mode, you can play in the internet with no charge, or via TCP/IP and IPX network, never tried this mode but it should be very cool to play with human opponents this game.

Speed Busters comes packed with seven different tracks, one of them is hidden and other 3 are locked, you'll have to play in championship mode and get a good position in the 3

un-locked tracks to gain access to the additional ones, if not, you can't even get in them in arcade mode. Cars look great, they're based on models ranging from the '50s to the '90s, you can choose solid colors for the cars or also select skins for them, there are some wicked ones, all of them look great anyway.

Getting access to the hidden track and car is no easy task, for this you'll have to win the the six normal tracks in championship mode, then you've to play them again but always get the first place, then you get access to the hidden track, if you get this too, you get the hidden car.

In-game graphics are awesome, textures look rich and colorful, there are some occasions in which they look a bit grainy though. Always, before entering the game a small window appears and let you choose any resolution you want, ranging from 512x384 to 1600x1200 and also you can modify all other graphic detail settings such as particles, sparks, chrome, lights, reflections, you can also choose the color depth... yes, you've got 32bit color rendering as an option.

Now, Gameplay...

There is no doubt of it, Speed Busters is a very fun game, car handling is good under normal conditions and there is a lot of sense of speed, two things that I always see as a must for any arcade racer but there are some issues with the controls that can convert all that fun in frustration.

As I said handling under normal conditions is great, however to get the most of the car, and actually the only way to get the first place in championship mode is to learn how do the car behaves and the truth is that this thing is pretty complex, you've to learn how to use the nitro in an appropiate way, also getting stucked in a tree or whatever is very common and the real problem isn't to get stucked but getting back to the race since there is no reverse in Speed Busters, you have to turn around all the way and while you are doing this, all the other racers take an advantage and it's almost impossible to take the lead again. Because of the numerous obstacles in all the races this is very common and is very frustrating specially if you were doing ok in the race.

Finally... Speed Busters is a great game, it has got excellent graphics, nice sound and a very innovative track design anyway it's not perfect and the learning curve is pretty steep.