Well, like a lot of other people, I'm sure, my first reaction to this game's release was "Oh gee... more money for George Lucas. As if he's not going to make enough from the movie itself." I figured it would be an average, at best, game trying to cash in on the success of the movie. Although I don't think I'm too far off the mark, the game itself isn't anywhere near as bad as I expected. It's fast, smooth, realistic, playable and it's actually quite good fun.

The game takes you through more than 20 different tracks in about 8 different environments. You start off with the standard course seen in the demo and from there progress onto 5 more tracks on different planets which are all fairly easy. Although you don't have to win all of them to progress, it's recommended you do, otherwise your pod won't be nearly powerful enough. Once you've won all the races, including the one's on the highest difficuly level, you can race in the invitational races, all of which are complete bastards!

When you start, by default, you are given Anakin's pod, although there are other's you can choose from. Personally, I started with Abe Endecott and he kicked a lot more ass than Anakin. If you finish races in the top 3, you win money which you then use to upgrade your ship and to buy pit droids, which help repair your upgraded parts. Once you start winning races, you also start winning the pods of the race favourites due to the fact that you beat them. I only used 3 different pods through the entire game. With the upgrades I did, I found I didn't need anything else. From Abe Endecott, I went on to Mars Guo, who I used for quite a long time, and then finally Sebulba, who's ship is fast as hell, but sorely needs the cornering upgraded.

Playing the game is fairly easy and straightforward. I played right through on the keyhboard, seeing as how my joystick is buggered, and I didn't have any problems at all. You only really need the standard accellerate/decellerate and turn left/turn right keys. You can also use the flip left/flip right keys, which flip your pod sideways. This is handy for getting through tight areas, but isn't all that necessary. Your only problem comes with trying to anticipate the corners. Because of the speed of the game, you often don't spot the corners til you're almost into them and by that time it's too late and you end up going through instead of around. So long as you remember them, you'll be fine from the second lap onwards.

The game isn't all that difficult for the most part, although races 13-18 are quite a challenge and the invitational races are a bitch! For the invitational races, I reccommend having Sebulba's pod. none of the others are really fast enough. As you go through the races, you should watch the track map in the top left corner of your screen. Every once in a while you'll see a section where the track branches and this often leads into a short-cut. Be careful, though. On one or two tracks they lead into a loop which takes you backwards instead of forwards...

The graphics are quite nice and suit the races perfectly. What I thought was also nice to see is that no matter how many racers are around you or how many extra effect you add (lens flare, dust trails, etc...), the game never got jerky. It was smooth sailing all the way, which is more than can be said for a lot of other games on the market.