Review by: Mike Thompson

This is an ugly time to release a racing game for the PS3 with most fans anticipating the release of the 500 pound gorilla called Gran Turismo 5. That's unfair, especially when we're talking about a game like Superstars V8 Racing, a discounted racing sim recently-released for the PlayStation Network that will (mostly) give you a lot of bang for your buck.

Superstars V8 Racing is based on the lesser-known Superstar Series, a European racing series that began in Italy back in 2004. The game features both single and multi-player game modes, none of which do anything remarkable or new. There's the Championship Mode, which contains exactly what you expect: Trial Mode, and License Mode (which teaches you more advanced racing techniques). The online races are certainly enjoyable, but I had a tough time finding other players to actually race against, so I mainly stuck to playing the game offline.

At the same time, there isn't the same amount of variety here that one would find in a full retail game. That said, there are 11 teams, ten different circuits, 19 different drivers, and nine different cars to choose from, which means there's a reasonable amount of stuff to do and ways to go about doing it. Different drivers have different statistics, and you can manually alter factors like weather, starting position, and race difficulty.

I also had a blast just playing with the various realism settings. Things like race penalties, tire wear, and car damage all made the game much more challenging than expected. The latter was particularly interesting to deal with: at one point, I managed to completely destroy a car, which forced my driver into retirement. A nice touch.

That said, there are some noticeable shortcomings with the game. While you can tweak the tuning of your car (which is modeled on real-world counterparts), there aren't any significant adjustments or changes to be made. It’s bare bones.

The sound is kind strange, too, up to the point where it can interfere with your race performance. When you're driving fast down the track, you're required to listen to what your car is doing. Unfortunately, in my case, I had a tough time hearing anything over the sound of the engine, so I couldn't hear my tires squealing when I tried to make a hard turn. Since they weren't gripping the road, this led my car to spin out a few different times.