To get started, the game can be overwhelming to the novice – after all, there are a total of 35 different modes of Gameplay, which are populated by a total of 70 licensed, fully authentic cars on the road, all sprinting across about 80 tracks. In order to progress through this true behemoth of a simulation title, there are two ladders available to you – World Tour, and Professional Career. Along with this, there is full support for internet and Ethernet Gameplay, with up to 12 racers. Perhaps the only problem here is that lag will destroy much more than just a single life or round here – it could throw the entire championship for you. More to the point though, let’s take an in depth look at the two main veins of Gameplay.

First, we’ll start off with the World Tour mode. When you first begin it, you’ll have access to almost no types of racing, or vehicles to do it in. But, as you progress through the 35 tiers of the career, the bulk of which have 3 events to choose from, while the final events force you to compete in, and win pre-defined series. Each “Event” per se is really a miniature tournament, which can run anywhere from two races and up. Unfortunately, your choice in vehicles is rather limited – while some championships allow for you to select from 2-3 vehicles, many force you to take a specific one, leaving no room for compromise, or change. On the plus side, though you’ll be able to take all of the available cars out for a run once you’ve finished said championship. In some lucky, rare cases, you’ll have the chance to drive something exotic – monster trucks for example – in events that are but one race long, offering you an easy way to bypass a tier if things are not to your skill. Buyer beware, though, as you’re going to have to race on your off classes eventually, so it pays off to at least gain your footing here, and in the now.

Professional Career mode will take you a lifetime’s worth of races based on your particular discipline. For your enjoyment, we’ll let you find these things out when you finally get there. After finding your home in terms of a discipline (that being, the career you will pursue, something which you can easily decide after playing the World Tour mode for a while), it’s time to grab the car for you, and tune it to exactly what you need. Each race will be taken much more seriously than with World Tour mode – there are repercussions for hosing your transmission, or forgoing that upgrade on brand new tires to help the car stick after you drop a beast of an engine in. After this initial bit of choice, the driver is then tasked with wining championships (with over 150 in each category!) in order to advance on, in order to get a hold of faster cars and bigger tracks. If you’ve been looking for a game to sink countless hours into, and you’ve already finished Oblivion, this would be it. Unfortunately, reckless drivers of the World Tour will find that in your career – contact is treated that much more harshly. Thus, if you’re someone with oodles of dedication, the sweet fruits of your labor will come through this career path.

The third real “mode” of Gameplay is the multiplayer aspect. With the ability to take any vehicle on any track against anyone, there’s not much to miss here. What’s nice to see is the addition of LAN support, which will negate the often major need for third party modifications to get games to run over the network. In this realm, your opponents are that much closer and, provided you’ve been knocked out of the race, you (or another player who’s been screwed over) can really take everyone down, via either goofing off on the track (reverse driving, anyone?), or the good old manual distractions. Just don’t expect those drivers to be very friendly after. On the matter of your precision laps, or suicidal jaunts, there is the matter of control. To be blunt, the control setup in this game is deathly precise, and unforgiving. If you can’t drive a manual transmission, but think you can due to other games where the clutching is done for you, think again. In my early times of playing this game, failing to clutch as I shifted resulted in the car grinding the gears, often shifting twice instead of once. So, if you want to train yourself to properly clutch, go ahead and try. If you don’t, though, then don’t take your chances – it really sucks to lose a race because the transmission went. That being said, the mechanics of handling and shifting are very well handled, when you know what you’re doing. Kudos to Code masters for removing the pesky barrier of poor control.