Ever hear that expression, 'The devil is in the details?' Well, it means that usually the hardest part of anything isn't so much about controlling the big picture as it is managing little things. And, in the gaming world, it's safe to say that details often mean the difference between a smash hit and a good game. Or, between an average game and an instant bargain-bin offering. Why, for instance, do we like Syphon Filter but revere Metal Gear Solid? Why did the last few Tomb Raider games feel like too much of a good thing? Why won't Michael Jackson just remain a has-been? The reason for all but the last one is...well, the details make or break you. Good ideas and solid execution can be found throughout Infogrames' newest Racer, Le Mans 24 Hours, but devilish details keep this game from being truly spectacular.

The nice things you'll see as you progress through the famous 24 hour event that is Le Mans racing fall mostly into the way cars handle and the nice sense of speed they convey around the track. This, after all, is the heart of racing. Track scenery comes in a lot of variety, but it suffers from a generally poor look. The tracks like Atlanta, where you'll race under shady trees, have a neat look without any real detail or sharpness in the graphics. Not that there's slowdown or bad graphics, just nothing that really pops off the screen. Little touches like the way your brakes heat up and glow visibly behind the car's rims and the airstream that becomes visible around your spoiler at high speed make Le Mans 24 Hours easy to fall into and enjoy. Lots of detail went into the cars. It really does a serviceable job graphically, and the sound is excellent also. Music is as you might expect, high energy and repetitious, but the car sounds are outstanding. Engines whine and purr realistically, and I do mean realistically. People not wild about racing anyway will go nuts listening to you whine around the track again and again, but the authenticity of each car's signature motor sound is a great touch. My favorite sound has to be the explosive pop that goes with the flaming backfire you'll see if you drop the throttle too quickly. Good stuff.

Le Mans 24 Hours is a real event, hotly contested and attended by some of the biggest auto manufacturers out there for pure Sports Car racing. In the game, three classes of cars can be raced. The GT car is a non-F1 style of car, souped up for speed, but closest to road condition. The Open Prototype is way too highly tuned to ever make it on the highway, but still a class removed from the Closed Prototype. These last models are closest to the F1 experience one either hates or loves. Luckily, Le Mans 24 Hours manages to combine some of the best in F1 without requiring the strict (some might say fanatical) attention to detail and control required in F1 racing.

The event, and I do mean 'the' event, is a 24-hour race that rewards you for how many laps are completed when time runs out. That's right, it doesn't matter who comes in 'first' on the nth lap. What matters is how many times you can run your car around through light and dark before time runs out. The time-based element in Le Mans 24 Hours allows racing under different weather and lighting conditions. This alone is a cool feature, but there's much more. Moonlighting racers can choose a Quick Race mode to just jump in and take some laps around any open track, trying out cars or practicing rhythms before entering one of the main competitions. Time Trial is yet another quick way to hone skills before or after a competition, and Multiplayer is a decent way to enjoy unlocked tracks and cars with a friend. On split screen, no less. The beefiest mode, apart from the simulation of Le Mans 24 Hours is certainly the Championship. Racing through eight separate series of race events, you'll be able to unlock not only new cars and tracks, but also gain the prowess and control needed to enter the endurance race with any chance of winning. Once you're ready to tackle Le Mans, you'll find almost half of the 70 cars available can be played only in this mode, making it one you'll come back to again and again. Winning in any mode comes down the same stuff we always find in racing. Timing, consistency and setup make or break you on the track. Unlike the F1 tradition of basically letting you build a car from the ground up every time you pit-in, Le Mans 24 Hours goes the more simple route and lets you tinker with things even racing amateurs can handle. Downforce, gearing, brakes and gas all make perfect sense and come through in the cars' handling as they should. Again, as with graphics, the cars seem to have been given a lot of love and care on the side of realism. The claim of a physics engine so highly tuned that you'll 'feel the thrill of driving at 200mph' is perhaps a little overblown, but there's nothing shabby about how Le Mans 24 Hours handles and controls.

Le Mans 24 Hours kindly allows you to adjust not only your own driving level, but also the level of the cars around you. For those just beginning to play racing games, go ahead and dial everything down. But, if you're hardcore and want to dial yourself down and everybody else up to '11' you're more than welcome. Adjusting personal preferences has an effect on auto-braking and AI adjustment to your car for better cornering. Not that the Amateur setting with put you on auto-drive, but it won't let you totally splat yourself against a wall or go too far astray. Expert difficulty is pure and simple racing. If you want to off-road in the new Mercedes CLK, be our guest! Don't worry about those tires, 'cause they won't be around for long... ;) AI seems to really respond as they should, according to the levels set by you, so nobody should be left in last place on this one.

Sure, we all love realism, but how does this thing really play? Well, the engine is solid and supports all the little touches graphically without so much as a hiccup for PS2. Smooth graphics and neat effects aside, there's a sterile quality to Le Mans 24 Hours that doesn't go away. I'm waiting for that gritty game to come along that will really make us feel what it's like to be stuck in a car for 24 hours flying at speeds in excess of 100mph with a hope and a prayer. Something along the lines of the sportscast realism one sees in EA games. Here, we have a solid engine and a great racing game from the gameplay standpoint. But, there's still a lack of real simulation to recommend this above certain other racing titles we've seen or will see soon. What we have is a solid game that uses a sim-style to build depth, but falls back on a more simplistic control scheme and customization to sustain energy. F1 may be as deep as deep can be, but how many gamers really have the patience to memorize every foot of the track and fine-tune their throttle finger to make split second adjustments before a critical curve or risk losing the whole ball of wax? Not many. So, it would seem that while Le Mans 24 Hours does a great job of simulating the race it takes its name from, it can't find enough depth to do more than be an excellent high-test Racer. There's nothing complex about setup for these cars. Default values come as they do, but Workshop lets you tweak gearbox settings to favor acceleration or top speed, brakes and fuel levels, and even control the downforce. Downforce is the most obscure of all the options, but it really just comes down to a choice between control and speed. Doesn't it always? So, even playing on default options, nothing here makes jumping in as a complete Amateur impossible. This game is very playable, even if it sacrifices some of the authenticity of the racing experience to reach that end. Only the hardcore mothers out there like the idea of a car being completely unplayable when improperly set up. Most of us just like to watch the pretty cars go around the track under our control, and to see ourselves crossing the finish line first.

Racing games seem to come and go, but no matter how far Le Mans 24 Hours may be from 'best of breed,' it still remains a very solid Racer with tons of replay value. Certainly, far worse racing games can be bought for the system (I've played at least one...) so don't hesitate to make the purchase if you're looking for some great racing. Gran Turismo is all about the details, and may end up as more of a hardcore experience comparatively, but Le Mans 24 Hours is all about a quality experience. Graphics could use some more tweaking and definition, and of course we always want more cars and tracks, but still at the end of the day this is a solid effort and one racing franchise I hope to see again on this or other systems.