New Star GP Review

While Daytona USA and SEGA Rally tend to get the majority of love when it comes to SEGA racing games (and Out Run, I guess), Virtua Racing doesn't nearly get the level of respect it deserves. Back in 1992, it was an impressive head-turner in the arcades, rendering 3D polygonal F1 cars a full year before Virtua Fighter used polygons to build its roster of pointy characters. Even on the Mega Drive/Genesis, Virtua Racing impressed, and New Star GP not only possesses that same distinctive retro style, but it has plenty of neat modern trappings of its own. And while it's certainly not the first indie racing game to ape SEGA's racing heyday, it's certainly one of the better examples out there.

You start New Star GP by customising your own Formula One car and driver, choosing liveries and colour schemes, before your decades-spanning career begins in earnest during the 1980s, back when McLaren and Williams ruled the roost. From the get-go, there's a clear fondness for the glory days of F1 and the arcade racers of yore, both in the way the game is presented and how it plays. Even the names of rival racers, like Niki Laube, Ayrton Serafino, Gilles Verville, and Nigel Mawson, pay thinly veiled tribute to iconic F1 champions like Niki Lauda, Ayrton Senna, Gilles Villeneuve, and Nigel Mansell (yes, he does sport a splendid 'tache in the game).

Fun and accessible arcade racing is but the tip of the iceberg in New Star GP's Career Mode, with 'bux' currency to be earned from Time Trials, Elimination races, Checkpoint races, Grand Prix wins, and head-to-heads with rivals to spend on upgrades for your car, useful perks, and other odds and ends. Then there are decisions to be made, some of which will rub your opponents up the wrong way, or upset one of your staff members – will you keep your Chief Engineer happy and risk pissing off your Commercial Manager, or vice versa? One might bag you some bonus bux, while the other might mean quicker pit stops or a one-race perk. The choice is yours.

Once you've beaten everything the 1980s season has to throw at you, you'll gain a promotion to the 1990s, with a new car chassis to upgrade from scratch and more Grand Prix events to tackle, running the gamut from Australia to Belgium and Japan. From there, you can go on to the 2000s, 2010s, and right up to the 2020s, with new car models that faithfully represent the era. There are loads of race venues to master, pit stop strategies to determine (tyre wear and fuel loads mainly), weather conditions to contend with, and more – there's a surprising amount of depth for what is ostensibly an arcade racer. Outside of the solo Career, you can also create your own Championship events, which you can play against AI rivals or compete against friends in four-player local split-screen races.

Turns out that this is much more than a loving homage to beloved '90s arcade racing games – New Star GP might look deceptively simplistic, with its flat polygonal retro style, but there's a modicum of complexity to its racing mechanics and the various other Career Mode fripperies (although you can rewind a limited number of times if you make a mid-race error). In short, if you're nostalgic for the old blue skies of SEGA's bygone racing games and crave a solid arcade racer, then this might just fit the bill. Or you could just dig up a copy of Virtua Racing for your dusty old Saturn, although that might be considerably more expensive.