Let’s face it boys and girls, racing is one of the most widely popular gaming genres on the planet today and it shows no sign of hitting the brakes any time soon. The industry is flooded with several driving games each year and even though they all involve the same thing, each of them has something special to love.

Gran Turismo is heralded for its realism and simulation aspects, while Ridge Racer is more arcade in nature. Burnout is all about total annihilation, while Need for Speed is all about the rush. Whatever the franchise or publisher, the point is that they each offer something different. Well, it’s time to welcome Konami into the racing fray with their attempt in the form of Enthusia: Professional Racing.

Enthusia offers some unique features that other racers don’t have, while at the same time it seems to emulate much of what its competitors do offer. On one hand you have a vast amount of cars to pick from and over fifty tracks, but on the other you have some unruly control and some features that make the game more technical than enjoyable.

Gameplay:

Right off the bat you will notice that Enthusia is more simulator than arcade racer and you’ll be spending a great deal of your time with this game testing out cars and unlocking a greater collection. Before you get started with all that there are a few things that you need to learn prior to getting behind the wheel.

First off is that the analog control is extremely sensitive in terms of steering, brake and acceleration. Expect to spend a great deal of your first couple hours with this game watching your car spin wildly out of control and crash into more things than Billy Joel does. Even once you adopt the system of driving, the gameplay is very frustrating with the sensitive control issues and the extreme technical nature of the racing. The steering is extremely picky when it comes to turning and you need to learn to control your vehicle perfectly if you want to accomplish anything.

The best mode to get started in is Driving Revolution, which helps you learn the fundamentals of racing in Enthusia. You are given objectives and targets on screen to drive your car through and are ranked depending upon your performance. The better you do means that you’re getting the hang of things, but if the screen pops up and says “bad”, well I don’t think I need to tell you what that means.

Once you’re satisfied with your abilities it’s time to take your skills over to the Enthusia Life mode and see what you’re made of. In this mode you’ll be going from race to race and working from a calendar dating system that ties into your performance and Enthu points. Enthu points are required to be able to race in the following week’s event and if you find yourself pointless all you’ll be doing is resting and working on your cars.

Good performance in a race is extremely important and you have to be extra careful not to touch anything, not even an opponent’s vehicle. While you are not awarded points for good driving, your score is taken away the more you hit objects or if you drive poorly. Enthusia really works in a system of punishing you for poor performance, rather than rewarding you for doing well. This takes a heck of a lot of fun out of the game at first and only diehard perfectionists will stick with it, so this game is not for avid players.

While you’re being extra careful not to ding anything, you also have to keep a mind on your position in the pack and be sure that you win. Enthusia has a nifty scoring system for the winners of the race and every car has a certain odds on how they will do in a heat. Taking the most powerful car to a track will not raise your ranking much should you win, but if you take a weaker car on a track you know like the back of your hand you’ll see your ranking soar.

As you complete races you’ll be given the opportunity to win one of your opponent’s cars. This is done complete at random and basically plays out like the big wheel on the Price is Right, maybe you’ll get a car you wanted, maybe you won’t. This system works fairly well, since cars are more accessible right away instead of having to save up a lot of money to buy them with. You will also increase your driving skill level and improve your cars stats by doing well and sticking with what works.

Aside from Enthusia Life and Driving Revolution we have a few other modes to play through; Time Attack, Free Racing and Versus. Each of those modes plays out exactly the way you think they would and prove a decent distraction and addition to game length. Enthusia would have arguably had more value if it featured online support, which sadly it doesn’t. As it stands it’s not fun enough to tackle the arcade racers and it’s not simulation enough to trump Gran Turismo, so it resides somewhere in the middle.

Graphics:

With over two hundred cars, there are some very impressive models here and you can easily identify one car type from another. The vehicles are crisp and accurate but lack some texture detail and reflective nature that other current racers do. If I had to peg a development time period to this game, I’d say it looks like racers that came out two years ago. That’s not saying its bad looking, just not as nice as current racing games.

That same description shows in the vast amount of tracks represented here as well. In motion they look nice, but closer inspection reveals some shoddy textures, jagged edges and a lacking of sense of speed. The screen blurs slightly along the edges when you pick up the pace, but it’s nothing that sucks you in or gives you the feeling that you’re really going “that” fast.

Audio:

Let’s get one thing straight, racing games are well known for their impressive, fast paced and addicting soundtracks. Someone should have told that to Konami before they made Enthusia because what we have here are songs that are little more exciting than elevator music. It’s not that the music is horrible; it just really doesn’t fit the “thrill” of racing and only works to detract you from the race.

The sound effects fair a little better, although engine revs and crashing don’t provide the impact you’d expect to hear. The audio quality isn’t at question here, it’s just the subject matter isn’t as strong as it should be when compared to the rest of the genre.

Conclusion:

While Enthusia makes many innovations like the car acquisition, helpful HUD icons and attention to a “realistic” driving experience; the entire game boils down to a slightly boring and mediocre racer. Instead of trying to find a niche of its own, this game tries to borrow aspects from several different games and quite obviously takes influence from Gran Turismo. For a first installment of the series, it’s extremely good though, don’t get me wrong.

Playing through the different modes is rewarding if you have the patience to master the sensitive controls and don’t mind being punished for poor driving, instead of rewarded for good. If Konami takes some of these concepts and reinvents them slightly, you could look at a seriously challenging series that could rival the big boys. Unfortunately though, with those other games on the market, this one winds up being merely above average. If you’re a car simulation freak then this game is recommended, otherwise it’s merely a rental.