Australian developer Ratbag opened more than a few eyes in 1999 with its gritty ode to off-pavement automotive competition, Dirt Track Racing. Since then, Ratbag has released a variety of sequels and semisequels without ever significantly modifying Dirt Track's fundamental presentation, a strategy that's unfortunately grown thinner and thinner as the years have rolled by. With its latest mud-flinging automotive exercise, Ratbag combines three distinct racing classes into one game but otherwise proves that complacency is not a good thing. Displaying comparable physics, comparable graphics, and, sadly, many of the same quirks that didn't seem so irritating five years ago, Saturday Night Speedway simply seems like one more kick at a can that's been booted around before. Though newcomers may well find it enjoyable, anyone who's wheeled into the Ratbag paddock before will undoubtedly feel a less-than-ecstatic sense of déjà vu all over again.

You'll rarely feel lonely in the jam-packed bullrings of Saturday Night Speedway.

For Saturday Night Speedway, Ratbag brings us three of its past subjects--the duct-taped, old-time Pro Stock cars, the comparatively powerful and expensive Late Models, and the high-energy dune buggies known as Midgets (similar to World of Outlaws vehicles but without the massive top-mounted wings). The game offers 13 separate real-life tracks to start with and another half-dozen fantasy courses that become available as you unlock them.

This is a lot of diversity right out of the chute, but Ratbag doesn't stop here. Saturday Night Speedway gives you five flavors of racing joy, including practice, time trial, single races, championship, and the pièce de résistance, the career. One of precious few race-game developers to even offer a career, Ratbag goes the extra distance with such key elements as car repair, car upgrades, sponsorship dealings, and more. Considering its relatively affordable budget pricing, Saturday Night Speedway certainly delivers more variety than one would expect.

The most serious problem--and it's a big one--is that apart from the three car classes, we've seen most everything before. The truth is that if you've played any of its precursors, you're already very familiar with the latest game--warts and all.

Let's look at the menu system, for starters. Though it now looks and operates slightly differently than it did in last year's World of Outlaws, it remains the same convoluted, mouse-clicking, multiple-interface extravaganza it always was. The developer should be commended for going into such detail and offering so many options, but surely there was a more refined way of presenting it. Additionally, Ratbag has confused the issue even more by asking "Are You Sure?" after you've made many of your choices. This is perfectly understandable if you've just made a major decision, such as prematurely quitting a race or a season, but really, we don't need to be asked twice if our repairs are complete.

However, it's not just Saturday Night Speedway's menus that hold it back. No, it's Ratbag's seeming inability to refresh tired approaches and refurbish problem areas of the past. Whether it was insufficient funding or a lack of development time, the game simply does not address issues that needed to be addressed. Collision detection and collision reactions are two prime examples. For too long now, Ratbag games have been erratic in this regard, so you'll actually witness cars bouncing this way and that way when it appears as though they haven't even touched. Conversely, some instances of contact go completely undetected. Indeed, you may notice competitor cars actually transposing their right flanks through your left side, in essence causing body parts to merge rather than bang.

And even when you do collide, chances are you'll come away with virtually no visible damage. We took our Pro Stocker on a search-and-destroy mission over the course of several laps, ensuring that it bashed everything in sight along the way. We then stopped to inspect the vehicle and found nary a scratch. Our performance was affected but only marginally so, and our garage repair bill afterward was shockingly low. Granted, you'll kill your car by driving headfirst into two or three onrushing competitors, but even then it doesn't really look broken. You may see a little smoke here and there, and perhaps there'll be some vaguely bent metal, but there'll be nothing overly dramatic evident.

Up, up, and away. A renegade driver takes a flying leap over a string of hard-racing Late Models.

Furthermore, the integrity of wearable parts does not seem to be appropriately impacted by stress. Tires do not slowly fall apart when you drive them hard, and engines deteriorate only through extremely excessive redlining. In fact, you'll generally need to visit the repair shop only after a particularly rough race that features lots of vehicle-to-vehicle contact. And when you do, remember that you can activate the game's "Repair" command only with a keystroke. Unlike every other button in the Saturday Night Speedway world, the game won't accept input from a mouse click.

Indeed, the more time you spend with the game, the more you realize how little it is has evolved from Dirt Track Racing. The sponsorship element, for example--once a real feather in Ratbag's cap simply because so few other games even offered such a thing--now seems superfluous. Yes, you can secure sponsorship, but it doesn't take a very good driver to find it. Additionally, there really isn't much to the procedure. You merely make sure you don't get trapped into a long deal at low dollars while other sponsors are sniffing around, and that's it. There really is no other work required on your part, aside from securing good results.