Apex comes equipped with an arcade engine at heart and the appearance of a much deeper experience on the outside (think Ridge Racer Revolution). The Dream Mode allows one to create a concept car and race it to notoriety. If you haven't paid a whole lot of attention to hands on previews of the game, you might be fooled into believing that you actually get to "create" a vehicle. As it is, you only get to pick from a few predetermined models, pick a logo, and paint it. Entering the car in races and placing well will get your name in the papers, and this leads to more car sales. As car sales increase and you complete more circuits, the garage and staff where you work will get bigger. Bigger work place and funds means you can begin building new cars. You can either stick with the same introductory class of cars, or you can store up points and wait to build a higher class sports car. There are four classes in all and around 15 total concept car blueprints. Dream mode is really just a gimmick. Besides the presentation and cut scenes, this is really no different then any other racer where you earn points to buy or upgrade cars. I would have had a totally different opinion if I had options to change the styling or mechanical components. Even Tokyo Extreme Racer and Sega GT had a better implementation of car creation/modification. That's not to say that this isn't an interesting mode overall, it's just literally what the whole title is based upon, and it could have been so much better.

If the game is as fun as Daytona, who cares, right? Unfortunately, I can't remember the last time I was this frustrated by a racing game. The weird thing is, the control is really sharp. Cars respond well and power sliding around turns becomes as natural as walking after several minutes of play. Out on the open track, like in Time Attack Mode, you can really get a feel for the courses and you'll start breaking track records in no time. But, what fun is driving around in a racing game without any competition (side note: I consider the track and the clock competition enough in a rally game). This is where the game collapses.

The computer controlled cars in Apex completely ruin the experience. First and foremost, there's this rubber band effect constantly at work, and many of the problems seem to be related to this issue. If you're not familiar with the term "rubber banding" in racing game terms, it means that the computer cars will slow to let you catch up or speed up to keep up with you. This is done in an attempt to keep all the races close and competitive. In Apex, this technique has wildly undesirable effects. First, this keeps everyone in the race in a tight pack. I consider this a big no-no considering all the cars in the game perform on an almost level playing field. Usually you can count on your car's better acceleration or better handling to get ahead, but here you'll spend most of you time trying to bully cars off the track then block your way to a victory. In addition, the small differences in car performance become a non-issue since slower cars can still catch faster cars if they're behind. To top it all off, I'm thoroughly convinced that the CPU cars don't obey the same rules of physics that your own car does. They appear to have more weight to them, which allows two things. They will almost always win shoving matches (like they get a boost of speed), and they can take corners without sliding or losing much speed. If you are in the lead going into a 90 degree turn, they WILL late brake and slam you from behind, then continue on the turn unaffected.

There are some other things besides the CPU cars, which are minor defects that detract from the experience. On the track, hitting a wall only takes away a small amount of speed and momentum, but the slightest touch of your tires to grass will slow you down like quicksand. It's a problem on a number of tracks because most don't have the racing burms on the inside of the corners. Although I enjoy the simplified aspect of car tuning (you can tune gears, suspension, and down force to three different settings), the result is barely noticeable in a race. Gearing the car for acceleration will not give you an advantage in exit speed from turns, and gearing for top speed will never make you much if any faster than the lead car. Speaking of gearing, it's almost impossible to drive a manual transmission (which I always use) because it doesn't buffer key presses. If you're in 5th gear approaching a hairpin and you downshift two or three times quickly, you will still be in 4th gear. You have to wait until the car downshifts once before you press the button again. That's ridiculous. At least the cars evolve within their class, adding such things as turbo charged engines and ground effects. But, the increase in speed does you no good because you can't take your supped up cars back to a lower division to give yourself an advantage. You'll still be racing against cars that have received upgrades themselves, and this starts the whole cycle over again. It's all really a moot point because once you learn the techniques necessary to win, you shouldn't find too much of a problem finishing in first place.

On the truly bright side of things, the graphics are fantastic. Although the car models look great, it's the environments that steal the show. They are drop dead gorgeous. Huge living cities, rolling hills and mountains all line the track and the horizon. The sharpness and details of these trackside objects are amazing. It's easily the best looking backdrops I've seen in a console racing game. While the cars look good and may be using more polys than other racers, there's still something about them that look unrealistic compared to the environment. Now mind you, I think no other racer, with the exception of Gran Turismo, has gotten this right. Maybe it's the strong black lines that separate the body parts, or maybe it's just from a lighting and artistic perspective. Regardless, I'm just being overly opinionated, and the visuals are still quite stellar. The puzzling thing is that while Apex supports progressive scan, it doesn't offer a widescreen mode, something that is truly beneficial in a racer.

Caution, scraping metal sounds in Apex could damage your hearing. Okay, maybe not, but it will get on your nerves. The sound effects could use a lot of help, most notably the "car banging car" sounds. Every time you make contact with another vehicle (and you will...a lot), you'll be treated to something akin to a child banging a spoon on a pot. The engine sounds on the other hand are pretty well done, if not a little too similar to each other. Some of the dream cars are especially throaty and loud, which is nice. The only problem with these sounds is that you get no feeling of sound scaling, so it's hard to tell where other cars behind you are in relation to yourself. It just sounds like a big mix of engine tones. The sounds are also no different in the cockpit than they are from behind your car. The music was poor enough that after a few tracks, I went and replaced it all with my own thanks to the custom soundtrack option. I hope this new option on the XBox doesn't make developers disregard the beauty of a good game soundtrack.

I know there are a number of people out there that are really digging this game, and I say more power to you. If you ask me though, I couldn't in good faith ever recommend purchasing Apex. I swear, I almost lost a friend because I made him borrow it and give it a run. It's just frustrating from beginning to end.