Fernando insists that it be made clear that Super Speed Racing is not an F1 game, or an Indy game, but a CART game. The distinction is lost upon me, on account of regardless of which governing body licensed the game, it's no fun to play. This type of racing is pretty boring as a concept, and SSR does little to make up for that. It's got a fast framerate, plus plenty of real-life tracks and racers, but the textures in general and a lot of the backgrounds in particular lack any kind of interesting detail, and the computer opponents are really, really stupid. More on that later.

I'll get the good points out of the way here. SSR evidently recreates the sport of CART (not F1, not Indy) racing with a fair degree of faithfulness. All the star racers and their cars, complete with licensed sponsors, are in the game. The cars look great on the select screen, displayed in high resolution with environment mapping. There are also plenty of tracks, based on real life, ranging from simple ovals to more complicated road courses.

Now for the bad points. The cars which looked great on the select screen don't look like much at all when you're actually racing. The same goes for the tracks. Some have interesting stuff going on in the backgrounds; billboards (lots of licensed ads and things), grandstands, buildings, the odd helicopter, but for the most part they're pretty bare. Overall, the graphics are comparable to a hi-res N64 game, albeit with perhaps a better framerate; there's even noticeable pop-up in the backgrounds. Your computer opponents, as I said, are incredibly stupid. Here's a fun trick to try if you happen to already have the game. In the middle of the race, stop. Turn around, and face backwards, positioned such that the nearest car following you hits you head on. Then watch as the entire race stacks up behind the crash. Not just a few cars, but every single car on the track will eventually line up in single file, straining to get past as their AI simply tells them to drive in a straight line. Not only do the cars not bother to avoid crashes, they also aren't smart enough to move out of the way when they're being passed; indeed, they occasionally brake when you're coming up behind them, which is a pain in the neck when you have the car damage option activated and crashes force you into the pits.

On top of all that, this kind of racing just isn't a whole lot of fun. No offense is intended towards CART fans, but I don't see the appeal here. GT racing has a wider variety of cars, and better GT simulations offer more customization options. I'll take Gran Turismo on the Playstation over SSR any day of the week. Rally racing has the same, plus the fun of driving on more varied courses and terrain. Sega Rally 2 (heck, just plain Sega Rally) whomps SSR without even getting near the redline. In my book, CART lands in the same category as NASCAR: a whole bunch of cars that look more or less alike go round an oval. Whee.

It would be more exciting if the car physics were in any way realistic. There might be more to the game if it better captured the difficulty of driving at high speeds; that would compensate at least in part for the boring tracks. But the driving system is so simple that most races rapidly boil down to a routine: corner, brake, downshift, upshift, accelerate, repeat. If you have the laps per race set anywhere near the maximum, prepare to be bored to death, especially if you manage to win the pole position. On an oval course, odds are you'll never relinquish the lead on the lower levels of difficulty.