There's two main problems in this game, in my opinion. One is that the rubber banding is too strong. This game never feels like you're able to put distance between you and the people behind you. It'll last for a little bit, but sooner or later they will catch up, it hardly matters how fast you think you're taking those turns and going, it'll happen. This'll lead to some races that are lost just due to one slip up at the end and just makes the presence of the other racers feel meaningless.
The other issue is that this is a rare example of a racing game where it feels like like when you're behind other cars it's always the straight-aways that are winning you your gain on other cars. Unless it's a more technical racer usually most racing games are decided by how well you can take a turn, as turns are a prime area to gain or lose time in subtle ways and necessitate you keep a balance so you don't crash.
In this game the A.I of the other cars always seem to be able to take a turn better than you can. You can try and take the turn in different ways but at the end of the day you'll still come out feeling like it the turn was a trial so you could turbo out of it and keep your position.
And on the straight aways there is no real skill-test. So it doesn't really feel like you raced better to get the gold, they more feel like endurance tests and making sure you don't screw up before getting to the finish line. If you don't come out with a gold and didn't screw up you feel a bit cheated , even if you know there were some points where you weren't as fast as possible.
There's also the repetitive nature of the game, but that's fine. I don't necessarily hold it against it. Though I do wish this game had a free-play mode where you could just run the continous track(s) that you can tell this game was built to be, outside of any missions.
My last gripe about the game is actually with visibility. I feel like your car is pretty close to the camera and that in general, especially if you're far from your TV, oncoming cars and such can be very tricky to spot ahead, which is a bit problematic for a game that has you building up speed for being on the wrong side of the road, and when the game asks you to squeeze through narrow gaps in police blockades. This is the hypothetical skill-test of straight-aways and it mostly works, but it was more than once that I felt I couldn't see anything coming. Sometimes you'll just eat a hit, and how well things go from there, or the small minutia of speed, will probably be the deciding factor.
The other issue is that this is a rare example of a racing game where it feels like like when you're behind other cars it's always the straight-aways that are winning you your gain on other cars. Unless it's a more technical racer usually most racing games are decided by how well you can take a turn, as turns are a prime area to gain or lose time in subtle ways and necessitate you keep a balance so you don't crash.
In this game the A.I of the other cars always seem to be able to take a turn better than you can. You can try and take the turn in different ways but at the end of the day you'll still come out feeling like it the turn was a trial so you could turbo out of it and keep your position.
And on the straight aways there is no real skill-test. So it doesn't really feel like you raced better to get the gold, they more feel like endurance tests and making sure you don't screw up before getting to the finish line. If you don't come out with a gold and didn't screw up you feel a bit cheated , even if you know there were some points where you weren't as fast as possible.
There's also the repetitive nature of the game, but that's fine. I don't necessarily hold it against it. Though I do wish this game had a free-play mode where you could just run the continous track(s) that you can tell this game was built to be, outside of any missions.
My last gripe about the game is actually with visibility. I feel like your car is pretty close to the camera and that in general, especially if you're far from your TV, oncoming cars and such can be very tricky to spot ahead, which is a bit problematic for a game that has you building up speed for being on the wrong side of the road, and when the game asks you to squeeze through narrow gaps in police blockades. This is the hypothetical skill-test of straight-aways and it mostly works, but it was more than once that I felt I couldn't see anything coming. Sometimes you'll just eat a hit, and how well things go from there, or the small minutia of speed, will probably be the deciding factor.