If you've seen Episode 1 then you will no doubt remember the pod race scene from the movie. This game is based around that event, it is set over 21 tracks on 8 different planets.

You can race as Anakin Skywalker or a number of different characters, some from the movie and some not. Each character has his own pod racer which has different characteristics such as turning, top speed, acceleration amongst others. You can upgrade the pods by buying parts from Wattos' shop or the junkyard. Parts from the junkyard are damaged, and your parts become more damaged as you race so you must buy pit droids to repair them.

You get cash for finishing in the top 3 or 4 of each race, which enables you to buy the new parts. An interesting option is the ability to select how the prize money is distributed before the race starts, the options are a fair distribution, rating first even more highly or winner takes all.

The tournament races take place over 3 laps and pit you against 11 other racers. The beginner courses are very easy and can mostly be completed by holding the accelerator and avoiding the obstacles. As the game progresses the courses become more tricky with moving objects, ice and even zero-g tunnels. Loads of the courses have shortcuts for you to find, some of them are obvious and some more tricky to find, finding the shortcuts can be crucial to winning some of the more difficult races.

Your pod racer is equipped with a boost mode which can be activated when travelling at top speed, this gives you a big increase in speeds but causes you engine to overheat and eventually explode if you use it for too long. This boost mode adds an interesting twist to the game as using it at the correct time can make all the difference.

As you race your opponents use a manner of tricks to stay ahead of you, this normally involves slamming into the side of you or setting fire to your craft. This can be quite annoying but adds a bit more excitement to the game. One problem I have is that the AI of the opponents is a bit too unrealistic, i.e. they never crash accidently, this detracts somewhat from the 'realism' of the game.

During the race sometimes you find yourself at the back of the race, the racers in positions 10 and 11 will 'hang back' with you and even stop if you do, while this may be an attempt to make the race more interesting it can be quite annoying as they are difficult to pass because they will match speed with you until you can catch up with the rest of the race.

The graphics in the game are good and move fast enough to create an impression of high speeds, especially if you use the first person point of view. There are a few glitches but nothing major and they don't detract too much from the enjoyment of the game.

The sound affects are taken from the movie and thus go a long way to create a sense of 'being there'. The music is also from the movie and some from Ep4-6, this is stored as .wav files on the cd and is good quality.

The game doesn't have much of a storyline and its just one race after another, it would be better if they had managed to integrate some sort of storyline into it to increase the immersion in the game.

All in all this is a much better game then The Phantom Menace, and thus makes it the best Episode 1 game so far. I'd recommend this game to anybody who likes driving games but it can be a little easy at times so don't expect the game to take forever to complete.