As the name suggests, this is another racer - only on four wheels this time. With your best Marlboro anorak on and your brother's moped crash helmet, you can pretend to be Alain Prost or Nige' Mansell as you burn rubber around 12 of the toughest formula one racing circuits.

As with other Sega driving games, you view the race from behind your car (why never from inside it?) as you steer round the twisting track. Accelerate and decelerate with the fire buttons, avoid the other cars and, basically, get round the course before the timer bottoms out. If you can manage this, then you get a shot at the next course. Simple.

As long as you haul ass past the cheqeuered flag within the allotted time, you finish somewhere in the top six. Depending upon how good your time was, you earn points which can be saved up and traded for improved running gear - acceleration, handling and engine. These are extremely useful, but only last for the duration of the following race.

You always get to select your next course from those remaining, and so this allows you to plan your attack on the World title. Find the easiest ones first and build up your points so that you can improve your car's performance on the trickier circuits.

One smart addition to the package is the built-in course designer which, surprisingly enough, lets you design and construct your own circuits. It's all joystick controlled, is dead easy to use and doesn't even let you make mistakes! Once you've grown tired of blasting round the tracks provided, you can design some fiendishly difficult tracks and challenge a chum, or try to beat your best times...

VERDICT

Considering that this was one of the first Sega games to appear (copyright 1986!), World Grand Prix still holds its own against the most recent racing games such as Battle Out Run and Chase HQ. The movement is fast and realistic, control is dead sharp and, above all, it's loads of fun!

There's also an added lure in the fact that you can also use the Handle Controller with it, which boosts the thrill value somewhat!

There's no soundtrack, but the engine drone is effective, and there's even an authentic doppler shift (neeee-yooooow sound) as you tear past the opposition (or they tear past you)!

With 12 tough courses to challenge you, plus a neat track designer, World Grand Prix should keep most speed freaks entertained for a good while.

GRAPHICS

71%

SOUND

69%

DEPTH

53%

ADDICTION

85%

S-FACTOR

82%

A neat racing game that puts some of the newer carts to shame!

Rating

82

Reviewer

S: The Sega Magazine

Region

UK

Scans

STheSegaMagazine-Magazine-Issue08?gallerypage=13

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