This is pretty unique... kinda reminds me of Metal Max. It's basically a hybrid rpg/racer. It has normal race mode too, if rpgs aren't your thing, but for the sake of this review, I'm assuming you'll be playing story mode. You're the son of a retired racer on a quest to become the greatest race car driver of all time. You wander around the map on foot (why?) until you trigger a random encounter... instead of the typical turn based battle, you race one lap against the computer on a split screen. If you win, you get money and get to keep wandering, if you lose, you get money and have to start walking again. You buy upgraded parts for your car with the money to take on more challenging opponents in 3-lap races. When you win, they give you new junk that progresses the story.
the good: unique idea that's implemented pretty well for a game approaching 30 years old. The controls are fairly tight.
the bad: the menus are similar to the original dragon quest trilogy on n.e.s. - tedious. You have to pull up a menu to get to other menus. the graphics are similar to DQ, too, but without the artwork of all the different enemy monsters, the only reason to advance the story, is just to finish the game.
the ugly: extremely repetitious. Although you race on different courses , each race feels exactly the same. Also, the main travelling music on the world map sounds suspiciously like "Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel", which does anything but alleviate the repetition.
Bottomline: The idea was ahead of it's time... If I'd had the chance to play this as a kid, I would've been hooked, unfortunately these days, my attention span is much shorter. In any case, this is pretty fun for about an hour, so give it a shot perhaps you'll like it more.