Exciting game with some unexciting flaws...

I purchased this game because I was looking for a decent arcade-style racing game with muscle cars for my Dreamcast. Well, what can I say? I definitely was not disappointed. Test Drive 6 has gotten a lot of my free time and I am still working on building up my garage. The basic premise of the game is to race your muscle car in tournaments to earn money so that you can buy more exotic muscle cars and also to have access to extra features.

The game includes single race mode, tournament race mode, Cop chase mode (where you can drive a muscle Cop car and run down speeders), practice mode, and "Stop the Bomber" mode. What cars can you drive in this bad boy? How about all sorts of Ford Mustangs (including Saleen and Shelby Cobra models), Dodge Vipers, Lotus Esprits, TVR Cerberas, Jaguars, Audis, etc. Overall I think it's a very good selection of both classic and current muscle cars. I especially appreciate the Mustangs since I am a Mustang lover and proud owner of a '99 Mustang convertible.

Racing in the various cityscapes is quite exhilarating. Not only are you trying to outrun your opponents, but you must also evade the police and dodge crosstown traffic. The graphics are only so-so for a Dreamcast game, it seems as if they were only ported over and cleaned up a little bit. I didn't notice any particular slowdown and the gameplay is nice. The car renditions could have been a lot more detailed in my opinion. The textures weren't all that and most cars appear rather boxy.

As far as sound goes this game is great! The soundtrack features songs from artists like Eve 6, Empirion, Gary Numan with Fear Factory (doing a cover of "Cars", what else?!), Kottonmouth Kings, Cirrus, and Lunatic Calm. The effects for the cars are decent too. The computer AI is perfect, no car is immune from a good wipeout or getting bashed from oncoming traffic. You can make errors in a race and still be able to get ahead depending on the severity and frequency of them. Even with a souped up car I could still lose a race due to a last minute spill or I could come ahead with a stock car due to a lucky break or two.

Overall I think this game is a good buy ($30 at most stores now) for your Dreamcast. Sure, the graphics could have been better and it really doesn't show off the Dreamcast's capabilities, but despite it's shortcomings the game is a lot of fun to play. This will definitely hold me over until Metropolis Street Racer and Sega GT hit the scene.