Superstars V8 Next Challenge Review

A racing game based on the Italian Superstars Championship isn’t exactly going to be able to go head to head with the likes of Forza and Gran Turismo in terms of brand awareness here in the UK, but it does allow for a few things that we don’t see very often in racers. Superstars V8 Next Challenge features circuits you won’t be used to racing in a car, and the TOCA-style suped up road cars will take you back to when the Codemasters series ruled the roost. Milestone’s latest Superstars game might be a little too similar to last June’s effort for some, but it’s still a decent racing title.

Straight off the bat it’s clear that V8 isn’t the most content-packed title you’ll play this year. The single-player modes are essentially a collection of what we’ve come to expect as the norm in every racing game. There’s Quick Race, Time Attack, Race Weekend, Championship and Superstars Licences. Of these, it’s Championship that is the meat and bones of the game, placing you in a Superstars championship season, competing in each event, complete with all the pre-race warm ups and qualifying you’d expect. It’s a very formulaic experience. Races are entered, points are earned and car tuning menus are looked at. There’s nothing here to make you feel like you’re a Superstars driver.

Other than this championship mode the only other notable inclusion is the Superstars Licences. These cover driving skills and racing techniques, with your completion times earning bronze, silver and gold medals. It’s not nearly as compulsive as the series of tests seen in the Gran Turismo games, but will make you focus on certain aspects of your driving, and hopefully become better at the game because of it.

On the track cars handle pretty well, but just as in last year’s game, they have a tendency to snake side to side once you slightly lose control of your backend. The 19-car races are well contested, although not nearly as rough and exciting as races in Forza 3 and GRID, and the 11 tracks all take time to master – they are real-life race tracks after all.

Of the current line-up of racers on the market, last year’s NFS: Shift and the previous year’s GRID are the closest in terms of gameplay, and sadly V8 comes off rather worse for wear in a straight up fight. Whereas V8’s handling model is far less twitchy than that found in GRID, it’s also less fun. Shift, on the other hand, is a more visceral racer, immersing you in the driver’s seat like no other game before it has managed. Again, V8 can’t compete. It would be harsh to label V8 as soulless, because it’s set out to deliver a virtual Superstars experience, but its adherence to the license has made it feel a bit clinical.

While the single-player component is fairly bare bones, V8 includes online support for up to 16 players. Again, it’s not especially unique, with Quick Race, Championship and Time Attack all that’s on offer. There are leaderboards too, so you can compare your best times with the rest of the world. We encountered some lag, but it was minor and only had an adverse effect on gameplay on a couple of occasions.

V8 Superstars lacks spark, but it’s well presented, albeit in a functional manner. Menus are simple and to the point, while the in-game visuals are smart, offering decent virtual replicas of the real-world cars and tracks. This isn’t Forza 3 or NFS: Shift quality, but it’s certainly solid and delivers a reasonable sense of speed. Damage modelling pales in comparison to the best in the genre, and the in-car camera is basic, but everything does the job. The same is true of the workman-like audio. You’d be hard pushed to pick out a part of Superstars’ presentation as poor, but you’d be unlikely to single anything out for special praise either.

Superstars V8 Next Challenge is so similar to its predecessor that it’s hard to recommend to existing fans. For newcomers it’s competent in key areas, offering a solid handling model and smart visuals, but compared to the best on the market it falls some way short of what’s required.