I picked this up a few weeks ago at Best Buy for $19.99, and I have to admit: it's a pretty damn good game. As a X360 title it's a failure, with very simple graphics and not much that will make you go "wow". If somebody told me it was a Xbox1 title running backwards compatible I would believe them (in fact I'm pretty sure some Xbox1 racers like Rallisport Challenge 2 looked better, outside of the obvious resolution difference). But as a simple arcade-style racing game it's a lot of fun. In fact if Namco had put this in arcades I'm sure it would have done great business and earned a good reputation. It's accessible and easy to play, filled with a lot of content (200+ races and at least a hundred cars).
The main thing that gives off a bad initial impression (besides the average-looking graphics) is that the first class of cars is far too slow. It makes the game feel pedestrian and boring. In fact even the second class isn't much better. But once you get to the third and especially fourth classes of cars the excitement ramps way up and the game becomes truly addictive. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure the demo is only the slower cars so it really doesn't show how fun the game can be. The good thing is that it shouldn't take you more than half an hour to get to the better car classes in the single player mode, and the slower cars are good to learn the tracks with.
I certainly wouldn't say it has better raw gameplay than a game like PGR3, but it does have actually a much more compelling single player mode. It's pretty ingenious in its design - I would love to see other racing games (including PGR4) rip it off. And it runs at a rock solid 60 framerate, which counts for a lot in a racing game (in fact there are only two X360 racers currently that do this, the other being Burnout Revenge, which is mind boggling). I would probably rate this as the second best X360 racing game (at least until Forza 2 hits). For less than $20 I highly recommend it!
