Was tempted to purge this one a while back because I wasn't sure if it was worth the time to play it but kept it on the reccomendation of a friend. Now having done so, still probably think I could have skipped it. Just don't seem to enjoy racing games as much as I used to, especially ones like this with 20+ hour careers, mostly due to the lack of plot or a feeling of progression or events.

This was another one that was much longer than expected. Interesting take on the racing genre in that it had a bit of a plot (well, as much as a driving game can) and rivalry with another team and progression through leagues and licenses and sponsors and such. This was actually a continuation of the TOCA: Touring cars series, but it branched out this time to all kinds of other racing. A fun enough racer and the flashback ability was much appreciated to reverse fuck ups. The actual racing itself was quite hard. Mostly due to the indestructability of the opposing cars. If you hit them, you spin out and they're fine. If they hit you, you spin out and they're fine. There was just no way to come out on top in a crash unless they slammed themselves into a wall or something. And they all had rubber band catch up so even if you did fuck them up, unless they were totally written off, they would always catch up. This was particularly evident in the last race where some....interesting tactics had to be employed to overcome the mega cheating and super cheap AI. Other than the cheapness, it was a lot of fun when in the zone and racing smoothly. A very well put together and nicely produced game overall. Plus you could also pick an audio name for the voice-overs to use and slick was one of the options.

Side note: excluding any XBox 360 games I may get in the future (which will only be exclusives so none that I know of to come as of now) or ones that have been marked for eventual co-op play-throughs (which I do not count in my backlog because I may or may not ever get to play them) this is my last backlogged XBox 360 game. So probably not much XBox 360 gaming left in the future. Weird feeling....