There are four different modes to choose from, Arcade, Championship, Great Driver Challenge and Versus.

“Arcade” offers a submenu consisting of:

- training mode
- driving mode
- race mode

If you really attempt to learn how to steer your polygon engine most effectively, you are more or less bound to choose “training” since it teaches you just that – optimal path of different courses, braking points (important!), and gearshift timing (!). After beating the training mode several times you might well advance to driving mode, which is basically the same as training, minus hints by the commentator. Race Mode enables you to race against other AI controlled competitors, who for some reason all drive the same car – the Ferrari 355 (surprise!).

In Championship mode you face the difficult trial of beating six races in a row by collecting points for rank, technique (i.e.: smooth overtaking) and fairness. By bumping into walls or other contesters or by driving off track points are deduced – so in order to reach perfect score, you will have to practice a LOT.

If you feel like playing with one of your mates you might take a brief look on Ferrari Challenge’s Multiplayer option, but be aware that without practising before your human opponents won’t be all too much of a challenge.

Ferrari Challenge is – even for more experienced players - very hard to beat, which is due to several factors:

First, and probably the most annoying, fact is that by touching walls and/or by driving off track your car cuts down speed to somewhere near 0 in a couple of milliseconds – and since accelerating takes its time (other drivers crash into your car) one small error in steering almost evidently forces you to retire from race.

Secondly the AI driven cars hardly ever make mistakes of any sort, and strictly drive according to prescribed line on the track. Once falling back in ranks it’s impossible to come back from behind.

The third factor of overall difficulty lies within the handling of the car itself. Unbalanced physics, like tires that definitely won’t EVER grip in the wet and the very poor variety of selectable cars (1, the Ferrari 355), which takes away the advantage of having a better car than the other drivers, consequentially lead to frustration and dissatisfaction (oh my, oh my...). Of course it is possible to tune up your car a bit by adjusting various settings, like the ride height, but the effect is rather marginal, if noticeable.

“Have you ever seen an ugly Ferrari?”

The model of the one and only playable car has been pretty neatly made, but it doesn’t impress much altogether , just like the sometimes rather plain environment. When it comes to racing track-design one easily recognizes famous examples, like the Nuernburgring or Monza, which leaves behind the sweet taste of “oh-so many-races watched-on-TV” memories.

Back in 1994 Sega’s Virtua Racing on the Genesis pushed the genre forward by providing four different view modes of the game, however today in 2002, Ferrari 355 Challenge offers only two. This as well as the lack of a possibility to look back doesn’t add very much to the overall gameplay value. Compared to games of the genre like “GTA3” for example, F355 definitely can’t stand half a chance, the graphical overall appearance is that of an average driving game.

Music seems like a desperate attempt of sound composers to create “real driving atmosphere” by the means of trashy heavy metal music and monotonous engine sounds in the option menu. During the game itself sound effects tend to be of equally poor quality, what is supposed to sound like a F355 engine roar could have been generated on any cheap synthesizer and the ever so squealing tires will get on your nerves before you can say “Suzuka”.

The positive side effect of F355 bad audio-support is that you are forced to listen to long forgotten records, which will surely bring up some nice childhood memories!

In general this game is nothing more than ordinary average. There are few advantages, like the selectable F355 or the authentic courses, and disadvantages in handling and AI, but no major improvements or innovative aspects. If you like Ferrari and always have been desperate to ride one of these boxes of incredible luxury you might just ignore this facts and still buy the game. All of you who look for the real challenge - hang on in there, something better is bound to be released!