There's a very good reason street racing is looked upon with such disdain: It kills and seriously injures hundreds of competitors and innocent bystanders every year. With Street Legal, Hungarian-based developer Invictus offers a far less hazardous alternative--one that attempts to virtually replicate the entire street racing experience, from the car lot to the garage and ultimately to the inherently dangerous urban competitions. To say that it didn't succeed would be a serious understatement. Despite a great concept, an impressively realistic approach, and several moments of hidden glory, Street Legal is clearly one of the most flawed games of 2002. So flawed, in fact, that a 30MB patch has already been released, and another is on the way.

Street Legal might have an intriguing concept, but it's too unstable to enjoy.

Detailing all that's wrong with Street Legal right out of the box would probably take a while, but suffice it to say that no aspect of the game other than its audio is free of errors and bugs. You'll know something is amiss when you attempt to install and are compelled to wait for five to 10 minutes for the process to complete. And that's if you're lucky. We found ourselves mercilessly booted during install on more than one occasion, and several times during gameplay as well.

As bizarre as the game's installation routine is, navigating through its menus is infinitely more annoying. For some unknown reason, the developer included a ridiculously fast-moving mouse pointer that's difficult to use, especially because each menu item is so dreadfully tiny. As a result, you may be forced to utilize the keyboard for those menus that support it. Unfortunately, some of Street Legal's menus don't.

All of the above pales in comparison with the game's controller support. We auditioned several control devices with Street Legal, including the Saitek Cyborg and Microsoft Precision joysticks, a Logitech Formula Force GP wheel and pedal unit, and a Thrustmaster Firestorm Dual Power gamepad. The good news is that the wheel functioned correctly before the patch and both the wheel and the pad functioned after the patch. The bad news is that we were never able to get the game to properly recognize either stick, even after we'd downloaded and installed the massive patch and loaded the game on two separate systems. Your results may vary, but these problems have been acknowledged and are apparently being worked on for the game's next patch. In the interim, many players will have to drive with their keyboards, which just doesn't cut it for serious driving game enthusiasts.

If you somehow manage to get past all those issues, you'll undoubtedly be horrified by the game's dismal graphics engine. On different test systems (a 1.6GHz Pentium 4 and a 1.4GHz Athlon, both with GeForce 4-based graphics cards), Street Legal performed so poorly as to be unplayable. Even at 640x480 resolution and the lowest detail settings, the game runs at a sub-glacial frame rate with some of the worst clipping and draw-in we've seen in a racing game in some time. Vehicles suddenly materialize on previously empty strips of road. The action freezes at least once every few seconds for hard drive access.

In the game's car lot, where new vehicles are purchased from a selection of 3D static images, the rendering is so slow and so deficient that some vehicles are never fully drawn. Of greater concern is the brutal rendering in the garage, where you perform all repairs and upgrades. In the garage, you must manually remove parts before you can install other parts, and this already time-consuming procedure is made much more difficult by the fact that parts occasionally seem to evaporate for no reason at all.

Upgrading the game with its first patch improves the situation only marginally, and it doesn't seem to do anything for the hyperactive mouse pointer in the game's menus, or for controller support or clipping.

Embarrassing graphical glitches like these are common in the game.

Yet for all that is wrong with Street Legal--and there is plenty--there are also several telltale signs of hidden greatness. In fact, if you really look hard, you'll see that the developer once had the makings of a slick and original simulation for players who like to be both drivers and mechanics. How the game ended up in its current state is anyone's guess.

Street Legal was obviously designed with gearheads in mind. You begin the game with $22,000 burning a hole in your pocket and a singular desire to assemble and race the coolest car in town. You'll start at the car lot, where you select your mode of transportation. If you choose a low-budget beater, you'll have more money to spend on upgrades and repairs. If you opt for a classy sports car, you'll have less money for upgrades, but you'll stand a better chance of winning races without first enhancing your equipment.