Game Review - by SkaDaddy
Need for Speed 5 or Speed Busters 2? I'd have to stay Speed Devils 1. This is unlike any other racing game. You have to take on serious muscle cars and sporty European cars all on unbelievable and confusing courses. Drive wherever you want, there is no specific route. Sure there might be that main road, but it is out of your way. Maybe you can jump that broken bridge and fly into the lead, maybe not. You'll have to decide if it's worth the risk.

Storyline:
Start off in the bottom feeding class. From here you have to prove yourself. Drive fast, place bets, and accept challenges. This will get you the points and the dough you need to move up in the world. Higher classes, faster cars, and more upgrades. Install a nitrous system or paint protecting armor. This will keep you in the lead and in the green. Don't get too personal though, cause you might get a vendetta challenge. These head to head races are for pink slips. Hope you don't wuss out. It'll hurt your rep and your wallet. Oh, by the way, if you can stay on all four long enough, maybe you'll get to meet Driver-X, he's never lost a vendetta race! I bet you'd like his ride.

Features:
This game has 11 cars, 12 tracks, 17 drivers, and a whole lot of fun. The cars range from old muscle cars to suv's to sleek sports cars to big land cruisers. The tracks range from city streets to dirt roads to jungles and mountains. There are rockslides, hang gliders, broken bridges, secret routes, and other fun things along the way. You can simply race for points and money or make bets and gamble for more money. There is so much to this in-depth game, it is hard to describe. There are upgrades, damage, new cars, trophies, and everything else that goes along with being a Speed Devil. Multiplayer mode is more versatile than anything else I've ever seen. There are more modes of play- 10 all together, including for distance, time, speed, etc. It's a blast for a party to watch the race in split screen (top/bottom) mode. This game is huge!

Gameplay:
This is much like any racing game. It takes some getting used to. But that's ok, because after a few hours of addictive racing and betting, you'll be a natural. The menus are simple and easy to follow: great for those of you who've never read an instruction manual. The only problem is the braking. It is too touchy. You tap the brakes and you slow way down. There is no play. Other than that, this is a good feeling, easy playing, arcade-style racing game. As for arcade, it isn't realistic at all. I like that. You bounce of walls with ease and drive over anything you want. If you want a physics reality game you should probably look somewhere else. If you want to fly over other cars with the greatest of ease, then buy this game. In addition, the multi-player side of the game is very multifaceted with many different ways to compete, unlike any other multi-player racing game ever.

Graphics:
The cars on this game are very well made. Nice body styles and colors. Whether you like bright yellow like Dick Tracy or flames shooting out the sides, this game has it. What it doesn't have is backgrounds. Yes, it does have them, and yes they are very interesting but just very poorly made. They are poor quality, poor colors, etc. Some places it is too dark to see much of anything. This is a problem when you are driving between a wall and a cliff. If you can keep it together, then bravo. Once you learn the tracks you'll be ok. Then, they'll reverse them or mirror them so that you don't know which way is which. Sure, it'll look the same but it won't be the same at all. This is a cop out for more tracks. I would have preferred a few more tracks then the original 12 over this mirror and reverse thing. But oh well, you can't have everything. The cars do make up for this, because they look sweet! Also, there are many falling obstacles, lava, water, etc. that look very nice and well thought out.

Sound FX:
The music rocked. You can download some of it as mp3's on their web-site (http://www.ubisoft.com/usa/speeddevils/). The sound effects are also very cool and high quality. I can't say much more about the audio. It was there, and it was good.

Overall:
If you want an in-depth, arcade racing game then this is the one for you. If you want reality based, qualifying lap, pit crew racing then look somewhere else. I enjoyed this game very much and even more so the longer I played it. If anything, check it out. There are hot cars, bright visuals, bets, attitudes, egos, and most importantly money. This is Vegas on wheels, baby.