Metropolis Street Racer isn't a game that anyone can call 'typical' or 'monotonous'. How Sega puts it: 'It's not about how fast you drive; it's about how you drive fast!' For many people who are unaware of the game's nature you'll probably be thinking 'What are you talking about?!' Well basically, what they meant is, it's fine to come in first place in the game, but the real beauty is coming in first, in style. In other words, this is the first racing game that you have to literally show off. You have to show your skills and your understanding of your chosen vehicle throughout the three cities. These cities that you drive within are London, San Francisco, and Tokyo, all places where the Sega HQ's are located. The more you drive, the more skillful you become, the more the legendary 'Kudos' you gain, and as a result, the more sections of the cities that will be opened up for you.

Metropolis Street Racer contains near perfect, 2-mile radius replicas of the actual cities. Other developers have attempted this, but only Bizarre Creations has suceeded. Being a London resident, I can honestly confirm that nearly every roadside detail, marking on the road, building, and signs, are all there. From TJ Friday's, Steak House, McDonald's, and Oxygen Bar, to Home Night Club, Empire Cinema, Pizza Hut and Trocadero; they are all there. However, there are some brands that obviously Bizarre Creations couldn't get the license for, such as Burger King, which has been changed to 'Burger R Us', and KFC, which has been changed to Diesel. It's rather strange, as KFC was in the previous MSR demos, but it must have been a last minute pull out.

I was driving through Trafalgar Square, and to my surprise even some of the birds (well not the same exact individual birds) are there. So there is indeed some life in the game after all, even after believing the city was completely dead due to the lack of people. Even in Tokyo you'll find trains moving over your head on a bridge, together with all the blinking neon lights. However, when you're driving over 100MPH in the West End of London, you'll be very glad that no one is there. After all, we wouldn't want to run over any tourists now, would we?

What is also spectacular is the drawing distance. The city draws as far as the horizon, and that is awesome in itself. You can drive over Lambeth Bridge, take the left going towards Waterloo and see Big Ben far in the distance on your left hand side, over the river, just like the real city. There's nothing more satisfying than driving through all three cities during the night. San Francisco, Tokyo, and London all look so beautiful, using the Dreamcast lighting effects to the fullest. This is definitely one of the best graphical examples of what the Dreamcast can really do. But it's not all just day and night driving, you have various weather conditions, such as rain, which is done extremely well, a slight mist to a full on fog, and so on. These conditions make the graphics even more similar to the real thing.

To be perfectly honest, yes it's great to drive around in three glorious cities, but that is not the true grandeur of the game. The cars themselves are one of the best aspects of MSR as well as the attention to detail. If you scrape your car along a wall, then watch the sparks fly, and when you use your brakes a lot, you'll see the brake pads glow bright red. Bizarre Creations even made sure that if your car utilizes front wheel drive, then you'll see the wheel move accordingly. Even when you're performing a wipe-out (360' spinout), you will see the back wheel lock due to the handbrakes, and the smoke effects from each wheel, just like how it should be.

Each car has its own individual feel, and they all convincingly grip the tarmac street surface when you're driving. They really do drive very much like their real life counterparts, but of course not too real though. As a result, you have a videogame that is fun, first of all, and hardcore for guru gamers. How Bizarre Creations achieved that, I don't know, but it's done, and done very well.

In the one player mode, the best way to describe Metropolis Street Racer is that it's like an adventure. The option that you'll go through to take part in this event, is called 'Street Racing'. In the game there are 25 chapters, with each chapter consisting of 10 races, each which also contain many secrets within them. So there are over 250 races in the game, and every single one of them, you'll want to race through. In every single stage, you will have to complete the race with a good time, and complete a specific task. The various modes you have are 'Hot Laps', 'Time Run', 'One on One', 'Challenge', 'Street Race', and 'Championship'. Sometimes within the game, you have to not only perform the required task, but perform another task within it. These stages are called 'Special Events', that only can be obtained by playing the game at a certain time of the day. For example, I wanted to play a Special Event which starts at 14:00pm GMT time, and the current time was 12pm GMT time I would have to wait for the next 2 hours. This is all done because the game adjusts to your Dreamcast clock, so everything is in real time. Including night and day in all three cities.

When you start the game, you first have to obtain a vehicle. For that, you have to go through the garage and make a choice between the available 4 cars that you start of with. To gain your desired car, you have to take on the challenge, which could be anything from a time limit for completing a circuit, or even beating a opponent. Once this is done, then you'll be ready for the main street race. You will start off with 0.0 Kudos, and it's up to you to obtain more. Every race you complete in style, your Kudos will be increased for great driving, or penalized for faults. Now here's the cool part. If you don't finish the race and quit out by pressing start and exit, then a large amount of Kudos would be deducted from your total compared to just failing the race. However, if you are thinking of being smart by taking out your memory card, then the game will not continue without it. Or if you try to act even smarter by resetting your machine, then that would be the worse move you can make. Why, because Bizarre Creations suspected something like this and has ensured this can't occur, and if it does, then kiss most of your Kudos goodbye.

Now imagine that you have been playing for hours on end like myself, and you manage to rank a Kudos amount of 24341.4 (the amount I have at this moment of typing), and you need 30000.0 to complete the chapter to advance to the next. Then what you have to do is obviously try to earn more Kudos. The way to do it is to perform better in your previous races by playing them again. But wait, what if you already tried really hard on those races? Then you really have no choice but to gamble and try and perform better. But what happens if you can possibly perform better, but it doesn't end up being enough to complete the chapter, then that's where the Joker comes in. These Jokers are very important, for when you earn yourself a Joker, (which could be via completing a chapter or a special race), it allows you to either double your Kudos winning or losses. So if I earned 250.0 Kudos for a race, then it would double to 500.0 Kudos, or if I lose -120.0 Kudos, then I'll lose -240.0 Kudos. Gambling is such a horrid game, but it's a different story when you're betting on your own confidence in your gaming skills.

When you've progressed in the chapters, then more two player races will be opened for you. You'll even be rewarded with new vehicles. Plus when you win a Special Event you could be rewarded with a secret race which could be a Black Taxi, a Go-Kart complete with a man sitting inside, or a new sports car! There's so many secrets it's unreal! Which brings up another point, the game is fast! Extremely fast, perhaps too fast sometimes. What makes it even better is that this really feels like the speed you should be moving when you're driving in these vehicles.

The presentation in MSR is the real killer of the game, and is where you will be spending a lot of your time. There are over 50 cars available for you to earn, from 16 manufacturers, together with like I said earlier, a host of secret cars. You can customize your car, ranging from changing your number plate, to choosing whether you want to make it a convertible (choice of hard or soft tops), and even adjusting the brightness of your windows. In fact, there will be a point in the game where the car you're using and have become so accustomed to, will be extremely hard for you to let go of. However, if you want to advance, you have to change for the better, thus finding an advanced car that's well suited to yourself. It could become a dreaded ordeal; but it has to be done. There's also many modes of play, like a two player split screen mode, which has no slowdown what so ever. You're limited in the amount of races available though in two player, however this comes down to how well you advance in the one player game.

Just when you think it can't get any better in Metropolis Street Racer, you then have the music. Authored by Sega of Europe's Richard Jacques, the music is so good a remix definitely should be in the works. In fact, while typing this, I have the music playing in the background with the Radio option. That's right you have read correctly, there is a radio option in the game during both off and on play. Using a real Kenwood radio you have all the same functionalities. So you can adjust the volume, station, and even customise a selection of over 30 songs within your own personal CD. You also have 8 CD's available, excluding your personal one, together with 3 radio stations, on each of the 3 cities. An example of this is when you're in Tokyo while playing, you're treated with authentic Japanese DJ's and music. When you're in London you'll hear our famous Diet Tango 'You need it because you're WEAK!!!' ads which makes a lot of people laugh, including ourselves, or even hear the DJ announcing traffic reports and so on. When I was driving in San Francisco, they were even talking about a robbery in progress, and the Police following the criminals via helicopter; realistic stuff!

There are lots of great songs available, however there are a few that aren't very appealing, but one thing is for sure, there's definitely something that you'll like in there. Another small but cool audio detail, is when you drive underneath a bridge, your radio starts losing reception!. It's not all about the music either, there's the attention to detail on the sound effects. When you're driving on Westminster Bridge in London at 12am, you will hear Big Ben with its famous 'bongs'. Also, when you drive too near a wall, you hear a swishing sound effect, like the real thing. Many times, while concentrating on driving with no time to look at the speedometer, you have to rely only on your engine sounds. Now that's realistic.

There are many positive things about MSR, but what about the negatives? Well, the replays are not very well done. The camera angle is too close to the car, thus not showing of the true action as performed in Shotokou Battle 2 (Tokyo Highway Battle 2), and Gran Turismo 3; in fact the in game is much better than the replays. Your car is the only one that has reflections. The crashing is too weak especially when slamming right into a wall, but due to the nature of the game, so rarely you'll be doing such a thing after a while. Also, the much promised spotlights in the air, and sun/glare effects, similar to those in GT3 or Sega Extreme Sports, is missing. This may have been the case because the person who was supposed to have added those effects, had left the company. There is also a lack of anti-aliasing/mip mapping that creates a moire effect on the distant buildings.

I guess the biggest gripe with the game is that it's only "partially alive", but trust me you really won't care about it when you're playing. Thanks to the radio, your opponents, and other small lively details, such as the birds and the trains, the city becomes somewhat more alive, especially during the night. Lastly, you don't really have the freedom to travel in a completely open-ended city. This could be the case on the final chapter but even if it isn't it still doesn't change this review score.

Metropolis Street Racer contains everything that makes a home driving game great, and more. It's the only racing game on a console that made me stay up for 7 hours straight, throughout the night trying to perfect myself, beat the challenges and basically be the best. Even though there are many other racing games available, however if you only can afford one, then Metropolis Street Racer should definitely be up your alley. Forget Lemans, forget Ferrari F355, forget Gran Turismo 2, and forget Ridge Racer V, this is the new king of racers. Both Daytona USA: Online and Gran Turismo 3 have a serious battle ahead of them. With over 250 tracks, brilliant music, beautiful cities, deep and insane game play, and many options and secrets, you have to ask yourself, am I a lucky Dreamcast owner or what?