Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli safely arrived Wednesday; however I did not get a chance to fire it up until last night. Before jumping into the game, I had to wait, and wait, and wait for the 2.02 patch to download and install. The download took a solid 5 minutes, which pretty much sucks since you cannot run it in background mode. After that nasty little inconvenience, I spent about thirty of so minutes with the game. I ran a couple of arcade races and time trials at Monza, and then several turns with the surprisingly fun Tutorial mode.
No real impressions yet, because such quick ticks would not be fair to the game. For $18, I am feeling rather happy with the game. Hope to get more time with it this weekend.
While waiting for the game, I learned that SuperCar Challenge is waiting in the wings, but it does not look like an American release is imminent. It also looks like another Need For Speed is coming our way, this time Shift. I really wish that the NFS series would return to its roots and get back to some more serious racing. I would love to see an updated version of the first PSX NFS, but I doubt that is going to happen anytime soon. At least Shift, complete with power ups, looks better than the recent street racing crap that has been plaguing the series.
