Supercar Street Challenge is an arcade racer from Activision that allows you to race various supercars, and to a limited extent allows you to design your own dream machine. Despite racing in real world locations, with mostly real cars, the gameplay is so over the top that it feels like youre driving a hovercar rather than a vehicle with all four tires on the asphalt. If you can take the game for what it is, and focus on the positives, Supercar can prove to be a pleasant diversion, but Gran Turismo fanboys need not apply.

Supercar Street Challenge wants to be fast, and as a result the games environments and vehicles are lacking in detail. By cutting down on the details, the developer, Exakt, was able to convey an impressive sense of speed. Much of the racing takes place at over 200mph and the games snappy framerate is up to the task of giving you the feeling of going that fast - most of the time. If there are three cars or less on screen and the course is dry, things move along quickly. Throw in a few more cars or water on the road and the framerate ranges from poor to horrible.

There are over twenty courses, all of which are based on real locations, but not replicas as found in Metropolis Street Racer. There are various landmarks sprinkled throughout the courses, and each one has the general look of the area it is emulating. A few objects, such as light poles and trashcans can be run over, but nothing else in the environments interacts with the cars.

All of the cars in the game, be they based on real-life machines or custom made, are lacking in detail. Even the cars in a first generation game like Ridge Racer V are better looking than what is found in Supercar. The only effects to speak of are the light reflections off the car, a little smoke at the beginning of the race, and the water on a few of the tracks. Theres no damage to the vehicles or particle effects to speak of, leaving the whole game looking bland. Dont walk away disappointed though, there are lens flares! We can never forget about lens flares.

Supercar Street Challenge sounds less flashy than it looks - and thats a tough thing to do. Instead of rumbling V12 engines, the cars all sound like four-cylinder Dodge Neons with the pedal to the medal. The music is all techno of varying degrees of quality. Some of its not too shabby, but there are a few tunes that make the whiny engines seem like music to the ears. Its times like this where you wish the game was on the Xbox so you could insert your own custom tunes.

Dont let the season mode or the ability to customize your car fool you, Supercar Street Challenge is pure, unadulterated arcade racing. There is a season that takes you through various cities such as: Los Angeles, Monaco, London, Rome and more, but its more a way to get you from race to race rather than replicate a real racing season. A simple goal of finishing in a particular place or higher is established, and then youve got to go out and do it. Reach this goal for every race in the series, and you move on to the next one.

The controls are standard arcade fare, and the game is easy to pick up and play, to the extent of almost being too easy. Theres very little learning curve to speak of, and veterans of Ridge Racer, Cruisn, or Rush will win races with very little effort. For the most part the computer-controlled vehicles all follow the same path and make little to no effort to get out of your way. Similar to Gran Turismo the lack of car damage makes using opponents as help during sharp turns is an enticing proposition. However, Supercar takes this style of racing to the extreme as often times the best way around a turn is to run into it head on at 150 mph and then bounce off in the right direction after only losing 50mph. Once you acquire the highly tuned cars, this trick is rarely necessary because the cars can handle almost any turn at almost any speed. The ability to create your dream car is somewhat misleading, but its a fun feature to play around with . You are given a basic body, and are given the ability to change the front and rear end, the tires, the style of headlights, mirror placement, and several other aspects. As you progress deeper into the game, the ability to change more features becomes available, and you are also give points to improve your cars performance. The feature is fun and easy to use, and would really be intriguing to see in a more robust form in a later game or another series.

Supercar Street Challenge is fun for a while, but ultimately unfulfilling. The easy gameplay, uninspired graphics, and generic sounds make it difficult to remain interested in the game for long periods of time. Speaking of long time, the load times are horrendous, and on top of that, they are very frequent, making it all too easy to just give up and walk away during the long waits. Despite these issues, the game might be fun for younger children that like fast cars, yet dont understand the intricacies of braking, and following a line through a turn, and who just want to drive fast. Anyone older than ten might want to get their racing fix elsewhere.