I'm happy to say that my MRC experience went rather smoothly after this initial, annoying dilemma. The game's intro begins nicely, with a shadowy car revving its engine and igniting its tail lights. Then it takes to the road. As this occurred, one hyphenated word came flying out of my mouth: Low-res. The movement was smooth, the textures were pretty nice, but the game is annoyingly low-res. This gives the game a murky, fuzzy quality that's distracting, but only occasionally bad enough to interfere with gameplay.

MRC has three tracks available. For the most part, they look a lot alike. The only dramatic difference occurs on the Mountain course, where there are snow covered paths. Aside from that, the race tracks have a murky, low color, rural look. This overall look is kind of drab, but the courses are designed well enough that fun can easily be had rushing past gray cottages at 200 MPH.

MRC's gameplay has several qualities that make it unique. For instance, each course has branching paths placed at regular intervals. Each fork in the road splits into an off-road path and an on-road path. In general, the off-road paths are quicker and more useful, but a decent amount of on-road racing will also be required to finish the game.

To succeed on MRC's branching paths, you'll have to race using a car that works well both on and off the road. Fortunately, another one of MRC's unique features is the ability to tweak your car's stats. You can adjust the type of tires you have (in varying degrees from on-road to off -road), the effectiveness of your brakes, adjust your suspension, select Manual or Automatic transmission, adjust your gear settings (high = good top speed, Low = good acceleration) and adjust the angle of the car's fins to increase/decrease the downward force on the car. If you spend some time tweaking, first place will be much easier to attain.

Not only does MRC provide lots of options, but you can save these options (including car settings) to a Controller Pak plugged into any one of the four controller sockets (this allows you to have two Rumble Paks and two Controller Paks plugged into the control deck). MRC's data takes 45 Controller Pak pages.

MRC uses the Control Stick nicely. The balance between subtle and sharp turns is easily achieved, giving a decent sense of control over your vehicle. It is also possible to set the Control Stick to function as an analog gas/brake pedal in addition to the steering mechanism. You can set how far up or down you'd like to push the Control Stick to apply the most acceleration or deceleration. This setup works OK, and is a neat idea, but I found the standard setup easier to use.

While MRC has some unique aspects, it has many weird ones as well. For example, the cinema scenes at the end of a first place race involve your car, a trophy, and disembodied cheers echoing through very extravagant arenas. There are no people anywhere. The cinema scenes that play the first time that the Match Race mode is played are even more odd, but they're so odd that they're cool. Unfortunately, you really have to see them to completely understand what I'm saying, and they only play once.

I discovered the oddest aspect of the game while sampling the music on the sound setup screen. In the background of track 9, amidst a techno foreground, I can faintly hear audio from the moon landing! I can faintly make out what sounds like Neil Armstrong describing the moon's surface as "like sand." Another track features what sounds like Police chatter over a CB.

Speaking of the game's music, the in-game stuff (with the possible exception of the Downtown track) is a bit too hyper and repetitive. It's trying to compete with the adrenaline pumping Ridge Racer soundtrack, but it doesn't quite cut the mustard. In fact, I found that playing to the music of my $12 copy of Ridge Racer (and no, I don't own a Playstation) made the game infinitely more exciting. Don't get me wrong, MRC's music is OK -- just not great.

During my evaluation of MRC, I seem to have completely finished it. I have won all three Championship races and defeated and won both of the vehicles from Match Race mode. This opened up the reverse course option, but aside from that, it would appear that I have done all that is apparent to do. The game is very short!

Don't think that the game is easy just because I finished it. Customizing the cars is really what let me finish MRC so quickly. This allowed for races that were almost always close, and rarely huge defeats. The races are similar to Wave Race in that if you mess up once, you're most likely going to lose. Unlike Wave Race, it's very easy to mess up in MRC. One of the reasons that messing up is so common is that CPU cars can wipe you out, but it's next to impossible to wipe them out. So you just have to be lucky in tight spaces of the courses.

Despite the customizable features, multi-route courses, and decent control, MRC would be just another racer if it weren't for one thing: its Rumble Pak support. Nintendo's $20 solenoid is used much more effectively in MRC than in either Star Fox or Goldeneye. When driving off road, the Rumble Pak vibrates in sync and in proportion to the game's sounds. For example, the low, steady sound of driving on a rocky road is accompanied beautifully by a low steady rumble. Drive over a wooden bridge and the effect intensifies to match the short wooden planks. Perhaps the coolest thing about the Rumble Pak support is the sense of leaving a bumpy road for a smooth one. The Rumble Pak stops completely the instant you hit the pavement, creating a very real sense of the change in terrain. It's very effective. Even bumps and jumps send a zap to the controller. The only problem with MRC's Rumble Pak support is that the game uses the device almost constantly. This is sure to keep you buying replacement batteries on a regular basis. Other than that, the Rumble Pak support really makes MRC stand out. Playing without the peripheral just isn't as much fun.

There is a 2-player Vs. mode in MRC, and it's pretty good. The graphics are actually brighter and more defined than in the one-player mode, despite the small viewing area. Both players can use any customized car, and load data from any inserted Controller Pak. As with most multi-player racing games, if one of the players isn't very good, or one of the players is too good, it just won't be any fun.

Overall, MRC is a unique, odd racing game. The gameplay is solid, but not on par with classics like Ridge Racer. It just doesn't quite capture that thrill of speed. However, its numerous options, wonderful Rumble Pak support and unique flavor make it one worth renting.