i'm gonna abstain from rating this for now because i kinda just don't think i've played it enough but its kinda been on my mind a lot so i wanted to write Something about it. so,

i, like probably many others, was drawn to this game for the audiovisual aspects. it has a fantastic soundtrack, looks great and has beautiful menus, has one of the best opening cinematics on the playstation, just a great Vibe top to bottom. naturally i wanted to at least dabble around with the game in an emulator i mean my playstation

i have basically never played a racing game in my life. i mean i've played kart racers and i played some sonic riders as a kid and i would fuck around in my older brother's copy of burnout paradise sometimes but i never really played a Real racing game. they always seemed kind of dry to me if they didn't have a gimmick. if they're all like this then hot damn i've been missing out. this game is a blast, simple to understand while still requiring skill and practice to master; i myself though am very far from mastery. turning is so fucking hard, kart racers didn't prepare me for this. turning is so hard. every track has like at least 1 turn that i just eat shit on every single time, over and over in time trials. BUT eating shit doesn't feel discouraging to me, like i expected, instead it makes me wanna keep practicing and improving, it feels approachable and when you DO finally smoothly pass through a turn that was giving you trouble you feel like the greatest racer alive. admittedly i still don't fully understand the turning and drift mechanics yet, that lack of understanding being kind of i don't want to rate it yet, i know it will come if i keep at it.

like i said i don't have a real frame of reference here for racing games, its possible they're all like this and there is nothing special about this game, i don't know! but what i DO know is that sometimes when a grand prix race is coming down to the wire and i'm neck and neck with another guy while move me or your vibe is playing its intense as hell, and i get all clenched up and i'm sometimes literally sticking my tongue out in concentration like a fucking cartoon character and a game that has THAT effect on me has to have something special about it. maybe its nothing about the gameplay and its just that move me is a turbo banger (which it is)