The part of the game I used most often was Career Mode. You start at Exhibition level, with only one series available. Each series has 4 races. It's you and 7 other, well, the best way I can describe them is to compare them to the snowspeeders from Star Wars. They run a little above the ground, but not much. Get first place in a race and you get 10 points, 8 for second, so on down to 0 for last. Earn the most points after 4 races, you win. There are also combat points awarded for successful use of weapons against opponents, and that's the tiebreaker. If you finish in the Top 3 in the first series, you unlock the next one. Keep this up, and you'll earn a chance to qualify for the Professional level. Win that race, and start the whole thing over, ending with a chance to qualify for the Expert level, and eventually for the World Championship.
There are only a half-dozen different environments, but each has multiple different paths, so between mixing and matching or reversing the direction, there end up being about 50 tracks total. Beyond your standard race, there's Velocity (where the only weapons available are speed-boosters), Magnet Mayhem (where you get an unlimited supply of magnets), and Knock Out (last racer at the end of each round is eliminated). Some of the series will emphasize one type (Throttle series are all about Velocity races), but most mix and match. The different types of races will have different vehicle attributes that are most critical.
Fortunately, you can win upgrades to customize any one of the four different types of craft. Most of the upgrades are purely aesthetic - spoilers, cockpits, side panels - but you can earn new engines, new brakes, different hulls (to change your weight, but also your durability), and wings (some will boost your speed, others are better for sharp turns). Your problem is to figure out the combination that works best for you. Magnets are designed to not only weigh down your craft and throw off its balance, but also to explode after a short time. While it's possible to remove them in several ways (brake boosting, barrel rolls, a shield pickup, diving underwater), you can expect to take damage. A heavier hull might be the only way to survive. But for a Velocity race, you need speed and acceleration. Maybe the lightest hull. Longer wings improve your turning, but can also trip you up in a barrel roll (that's triply annoying since it damages the craft, fails to dislodge whatever you were trying to remove, and kills your forward momentum). Would have been nice of the game told you what the four races in a given series were ahead of time, so you could make an informed choice without having to try it once (and get pounded, if my experience is anything to go by). After all, it's a safe bet all the computer racers knew what they were facing, why should my guy be the only one in the dark?
The nice thing about the weapons, besides the variety, is the ways in which you can use them. There are cables, magnets, energy shields, rockets, energy pulses, time dilators, EMPs, smokescreens (that last one is probably more useful against human opponents than the computer. I don't think you can blind it). Most of the weapons tend to have two functions, one activated with the left bumper, the other with the right. With rockets, the left bumper attaches it to you, providing a considerable speed boost. The right bumper fires it at an opponent, where it will attach at an awkward angle and send them whirling out of control if they don't get rid of it. How you want to use something can depend on what place you're in, what your point situation is, what type of race it is, how comfortable you are with it, a number of factors. In a lot of Velocity races, I'm more likely to use weapons against my opponents than to boost myself. I'm concerned about losing control and damaging my craft, plus I figure they went with light hulls that can't take too much damage.
Of the four craft, I tend to stick with the Mercury. It's the one they provide you with first. Not the fastest or the biggest, but solid all-around performance, and most critically, it turns well. I concentrate on handling curves smoothly, and otherwise trying to minimize damage. Damage doesn't actually hamper your craft's abilities (until it explodes), but it makes you more cautious because you know the ice is getting thinner. I won the World Championships largely because I went with the heaviest hull and drove carefully. I finished 3rd in the Velocity race because 5 other cars blew up before the finish line. I won the last race, a Knock Out, because none of the other cars could survive the full 7 laps. The last one blew up at the very beginning of the final lap (as I was trying to figure out if I could pass them without destroying my craft, as I was tied with them in points), and I was free to slowly make my way around the track, careful as I wanted to be.
I read a review that said the game didn't provide a real sensation of speed, but I can't agree. Beyond the sudden burst when you use a boost, I was very aware of the speed when I was trying to take a curve without letting off the gas. Those moments when you're swinging wide and wondering if you'll be able to get moving forward before you hit the wall can be tense. The learning curve can be intense at times. The qualifying races to move to the next level usually took me at least a half-dozen tries, and my first attempts at the series on the next level tended to end badly. It was rare I could manage a top 3 finish on the first try. 6th was much more likely. Frankly, there are times I feel like the computer programs resentment into the other racers, because I could swear they were all targeting me, especially in Magnet Mayhems. Probably my imagination, but sometimes I wonder.
Once you get used to the tracks, figure out what adjustments you need to make to your craft, things usually fall into place. Which isn't to say it'll turn into a laugher. There's an achievement for scoring 40 points (finish first in all 4 races) in all series. Even at this point, I have 3 series left where I can't seem to manage it. I may lose it on the first race, or the third, but somewhere in there, someone will beat me, and it only takes the once to ruin the whole thing. Once you start a series you either finish it, or forfeit entirely. You can't keep trying a specific race until you get the result you want.
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