I had good enough fun with the campaign. Levels were polished, built on challenge, and didn't put any significant emphasis on speed or "a perfect run". Clear that and shift into the arcade mode however, where a bulk of the levels are gated by performance and all of the flaws of the game come into sharp focus. Dark, moody, atmospheric roads and environments become hard to read obstacles that kill your multi-minute attempts. Spectacle becomes distractions from the very deadly 25 meters of road in front of you. Scenic stretches become boring padding across repeated attempts. It doesn't help that, frankly, the vehicle physics are responsive to the point of being boring. You can't lose traction and levels are consistently designed to be blitzed through with non-stop boost (and anything short of that is losing you that gold medal), removing any real speed-handling considerations. Maybe it gets better the deeper you get into arcade mode, but the starting lineup of levels are a huge step down in difficulty, but long enough and hard-to-see enough to tank my continued interest.

I had good enough fun with the campaign. Levels were polished, built on challenge, and didn't put any significant emphasis on speed or "a perfect run". Clear that and shift into the arcade mode however, where a bulk of the levels are gated by performance and all of the flaws of the game come into sharp focus. Dark, moody, atmospheric roads and environments become hard to read obstacles that kill your multi-minute attempts. Spectacle becomes distractions from the very deadly 25 meters of road in front of you. Scenic stretches become boring padding across repeated attempts. It doesn't help that, frankly, the vehicle physics are responsive to the point of being boring. You can't lose traction and levels are consistently designed to be blitzed through with non-stop boost (and anything short of that is losing you that gold medal), removing any real speed-handling considerations. Maybe it gets better the deeper you get into arcade mode, but the starting lineup of levels are a huge step down in difficulty, but long enough and hard-to-see enough to tank my continued interest.