After being wowed by Smuggler's Run, I have to admit I approached Wild Wild Racing like it was a runner-up. Chalk it up to better advertising or the promise of exciting gameplay. Imagine my surprise when I boot Wild Wild Racing and discover a game that smugly outruns Rockstar's best. Okay, bad pun... Graphically, the fine details in Wild Wild Racing are amazing. Exposed engines smoke and show moving parts, drivers bob and weave inside the car as you steer through corners, and the number of interactive elements on each track (not to mention all the hidden areas) blew me away. The soundtrack is awesome, good enough to listen to without the game playing. There's not a lick of slowdown, even in split-screen with 2 players.

If there were ever a racing game that came close to deserving the title 'non-linear,' it would be Wild Wild Racing in a heartbeat. This game isn't about modes, it's about winning the whole frickin' enchilada. Most Racers offer 2 or 3 modes and let you win a nice trophy in Championship, Tournament...you know the drill. I love what Interplay did with Wild Wild Racing because it's not enough to win the Championship. Every mode is connected, and the prizes you win one place work in your favor somewhere else.

The main modes are Championship, Time Attack and Challenge. There's a Quick Race Mode used for practice, and this also ends up being the mode you use for 2 Player. As I said, taking a car through the Beginner Championship earns you a trophy and bragging rights, but you'll never get anywhere by going on to Amateur. Even though you technically qualify at this point, only a masochist would try. Going to Time Attack or Challenge gives you the chance to win upgrades for one of the cars, or even win a new car. This really makes Wild Wild Racing feel more like a constantly evolving game, rather than a copy-cat like most Racers. There are variations on Time Attack and Challenge for each difficulty level. Each of the five countries you race in holds the key to upgrading one of the cars, and there are three Time Attack levels in each country. After winning all tracks one country, you're awarded an engine upgrade that improves acceleration, speed or handling. Challenge Mode is somewhat different. In Quest Mode, your goal is to open up a hidden car for play on the other tracks. First, you have to race through one track looking for letters that spell the car's name. Then, it's off to a Skill Challenge, where you have to push a big beach-ball down a track to the finish line. It's awesome, believe me... The last course is a Stunt Challenge, and involves roaring through a short track toward a killer jump to the finish.

As you work through all these modes, the racing grows more difficult, but there's more than fast cars at work in raising the bar. Each of the five countries has a huge amount of track, split into three segments. When you graduate or move up a level, hidden shortcuts open up on the tracks. I freaked out when I first saw these, thinking I'd missed them before, but the tracks are actually changing. Quest Mode is designed to give you a preview of the shortcuts that open up by placing letters in the newly opened stretch of track. The bottom-line is, your opponents don't miss a chance to use the shortcuts so you learn them too, if you want to win. Earning all the cars is a great challenge, but winning the whole game is a truly worthy task.

Earning all of the hidden cars is probably more than the casual racing fan will be up for, and even getting through the Beginner Championship is tough. By the time you're at Pro, things really get hairy. The other cars drive so dirty, and one of my few gripes with Wild Wild Racing is it has the same 'hit-the-wall-and-stop' problem that faced WipEout on PS. Sadly, the cheapness of constantly getting run down by cars that don't budge when you hit them back is tiresome. It's hard to understand how this slipped through in a game with such realistic physics, but it did. My answer is to scream 'cheap bastard!' and taunt the AI cars when I eventually beat them, but not everyone has the suspension of disbelief I seem to have been born with.

After the free-roaming gameplay of Smuggler's Run, I wondered what it would feel like to get back on the track, but Wild Wild Racing is so huge, you barely feel like you're on a track. There are sharp corners to work with, but that's why we powerslide, right? A more rare feature is the 'kickdown,' something mountain drivers learn early on. If you're on a steep hill in a manual transmission and lose speed, stepping on the gas doesn't help. What you do is pop the clutch, hit the gas, and downshift when the revs are high enough to keep things smooth. Voila! Instant torque! Interplay's kickdown is nothing more than the old double-clutch, but what a difference it makes. The execution is simple: you just let off the gas and then floor it immediately. The engine drops a gear and you're off. Much like a good rally game, Wild Wild Racing gives us a handbrake designed for instant slide, perfect for those hairpin curves. Steering can be a little touchy, but everything about control on these cars is very sensitive. One amazing element is that steering too sharply in a curve will actually break your tires loose and send you into a spin. And it's not that floaty thing we all know from bad racing games; as someone who's been in more than one car-wreck, I can't believe how real it looks and feels when you lose control in these cars.

The only control gripe is a weird save system. I could never tell if there was some kind of auto-save, but the manual is pretty clear that you lose all progress if you don't save the long way. Come on, people! This is PS2 - let's get some auto-save here! Mind you, this is nit-picking. It's been really hard to tear myself away from this game over the last few weeks. The feeling of accomplishment that comes with all the little Challenge tracks, earned bonuses and hidden shortcuts means that Wild Wild Racing ages well. A surprise contender, but my absolute pick for the off-road racing king of PS2 right now.