One of the best racing games ever...
The Good Things About This Game: First off, there are a bunch of cars to choose from and a lot of odd ones such as the golf cart, police car, semi truck or bulldozer, but they are all great. The graphics aren't phenomenal but decent for it's time. The best thing about this game is it's music. It's absolutely great, and it was written by none other than game composer legend Barry Leitch (with Pablo Buitrago). The music was made in Fasttracker 2 for MS-DOS. The most memorable music I remember is the music while you're in the mall. While the music can get very repetitive, they can get addicting as well. Also, that annoying female voice from the arcade version isn't in this version. All you can hear her say throughout the whole game is "On Your Mark, Get Set, Go!". The game also offered the generosity of giving you infinite restarts throughout a competition. Also, the tracks are greatly designed; in Silicon Valley, there's a computer you can race through, in Santa Cruz, you can race through a roller coaster, in San Fransisco you can race on top of the Golden Gate Bridge, in Monterey, you can run through an aquarium, and in Central Valley, you can race through a mall. There are also a few raceway tracks (like an Oval, Clover, and Mt. Fuji). The best track is the California track where the whole state of California is microscopic and you're running over all the buildings and more.
The Bad Things About This Game: The worst thing about this game is the controls. Half of the cars in the game have bad controls; you push the joystick all the way to the right and left but the car sometimes only goes slightly to the left or right. Another bad thing about this game is that there was no ambient sounds or features from the arcade versions. Another thing is that a pedestrian car might purposely drive into you, and when you're far into the game and you hit a car, you might as well restart the race because you will never catch up to the 1st place car. Also one of the locked tracks is Fuji, which I don't think has anything to do with California. It is also too difficult of a track. Also they should have had more tracks like Alcatraz, or inside Midway's offices (like in Rush 2.).
Overall, I think this game's pretty good if you're a N64 racing fan. If you are, then I recommend this game to you. If you aren't a fan of N64 racing games (or N64 games for that matter), then this game may not be for you. Still, I say download the ROM for it and give it a shot or two. If you like it, buy the actual cartridge if you own a N64. If you don't like this game, give the arcade version a try (it's what made me want the N64 version) and see if you don't like that version, although that version is likely to get you addicted to the N64 version because all of it's impressive features.