Racers aimed at the simulation end of the market seem to be getting rarer and rarer, and arcade racers and “sandbox” games that incorporate lots of vehicular action and racing seem to be taking over. That said, the PGR and Forza series seem to sell well, and we’ve long been fans of Codemasters’ increasingly diverse racers.

You’ve probably watched or at least heard of Australia’s V8 Supercars series, and this game is licensed on a similar Italian championship - featuring BIG cars with big V8 engines in them. I thought I’d seen most of the obscure national racing championships at one time or another (usually tucked away on Eurosport 2 or Motors, but “Superstars?” Yes I accept that Gianni Morbidelli's mamma might think he’s a superstar, but really, superstars? Gianni (a journeyman F1, F3000 and touring car driver) is the only one of the driver lineup that I’ve ever heard of… but there is a driver called Sanna, and that sounds a bit like Senna, who really was a superstar, so that’s ok then.

Although there’s a bumper cam (full screen view), a high-mounted roof cam and two chase cam views, there’s no in-car cockpit view, a fact that I find disappointing in a 2009 sim racer. Milestone were very smart making the race options completely customisable, with realism settings (damage, penalties, tyre wear etc) and driving aids (traction control, ABS, stability control), but I recommend turning everything off as soon as possible, or the cars feel rather dead – especially the sure-footed 4WD Audis. As I said the handling is competent if unexciting, but although the cars hop over curbs and rumble strips in a realistic way the game’s physics don’t really allow for too much realism – you certainly won’t be rolling your M3 even if you’re as bad a driver as Usain Bolt. If you do play with damage on and have a collision all you’ll get is a bumper hanging off, and a really heavy contact will make the steering pull to one side. Again this is disappointing given the real footage (that you unlock by winning 5 races with each team) featuring some spectacular racing action, and crashes that are simply not possible with the limited physics and body damage in SV8R.

The car lineup includes the BMW M3, M5 & 550i, Jaguar S-Type R, Audi RS4, and presumably because of licensing issues the other cars (Mercedes C63 and American uglies the Chevrolet CR8, Chrysler 300c SRT8 and the Cadillac CTS-V) have all been given the unbadged “lookalike” treatment. The 10 tracks include Italian circuits Monza, Vallelunga, Mugello, Magione, Valencia, Varano, Misano Adriatico and Adria, Portimao in Portugal and former F1 track Kyalami in South Africa. Only ten might seem a bit lacking, but it’s a varied selection and there are some really good tracks in there.

Unlike a lot of driving sims that seem to think cars should act like uncontrollable killing machines as soon as you turn the ABS off, even with all the driving assists off racing is enjoyable - if predictable - in SV8R. Turning tyre wear on adds some nasty under/oversteer and consequent unpredictablility to the final laps of a race. With limited physics (the cars can’t roll over) crashes are rather unexciting, and given the door-banging nature of real touring car racing the AI seems too simplistic and placid, and far too happy to sit line-astern, only occasionally acting like impatient sheep and jostling each other when they reach a chicane or hairpin bend. They also hardly ever actually leave the track, and in 2009 I expect to see my AI competition making the sort of horrendous mistakes that I do.

Talking of horrendous mistakes, Milestone made a couple too. For a start, online racing is hugely popular on the Xbox 360 and a lot of people will be looking to buy Superstars V8 just to play online, and SV8R supports 12 players, and would have been great fun, if it weren’t for the huge mistake with the presets (‘arcade’, ‘simulation’ and ‘custom’) which means that “simulation” has you stuck with an automatic gearbox! Really? V8 touring cars with automatic gearboxes? I don’t think so. Also, most of the racers online at the moment seem to be French or Italian, with all that that entails. I found that joining a game is often the only way to find a race (as so few people want to play “custom” settings which is the only way to race online with a manual gearbox.) And here’s the second and worst mistake, and something that drives so many online gamers to distraction: early quitters. During my (not insignificant) time playing the game online, several of the hosts seem to disconnect should you be leading on the last corner. How on EARTH can game designers allow cheats to get away with this sort of behaviour in 2009? – a simple “dropped” or “DNF” stat alongside their name would soon sort the men from the pathetic little cheat-boys. Grrrrrrrrrrrr! This would have kept some of the disgusted racers that I spoke to (two or three of whom were heading back to Forza 2 or GRID) playing the game for longer for sure.

The cars are, understandably, the stars of the game and are modelled nicely, and on the move even with all the other cars in front of you it all moves very smoothly. This is no doubt aided by the last-gen levels of trackside detail; buildings and 2-D trees are very basic and although there’s never a hint of pop-up you won’t be admiring any views. There’s a strange glitch which means that dust water spray and tyre marks that are clearly visible when using the chase cams don’t appear when you use either the bumper or roof cam, and this makes no sense at all - surely the game should look more realistic from these views, not less so. SV8R has a really good replay mode that’ll allow you to watch an entire 14 lap race, from any car's point of view, but the racing is usually so uneventful that I doubt you’ll use it very often. The cars look nice and shiny (unless you go off track at which point they pick up a nice dusty effect), and look great on the move in the replay mode, but yet again the tyres pop through the wheel arches when the suspension bottoms out – it’s really time someone figured out how to eradicate this old chestnut from racing games. You can also pause the action, take control of the camera’s movement and zoom it in and rotate it – much like Project Gotham 3 and 4’s camera mode but bizarrely without the facility to actually “take a picture” and save it anywhere, so what’s the point…? The cars sound V8-ey enough and have a realistic gearbox whine, tyre squeals and gear change” clunk”, and thankfully despite all being V8-powered the cars do sound different. I did think I had a flat tyre for a while as I could hear this “whuppa~whuppa~whuppa” noise, but that turned out to be a helicopter hovering above the track!

If you prefer your racers to be heavy on the simulation and like twiddling shock absorber settings and gear ratios then you’ll undoubtedly enjoy SV8R to a point, but your wallet might not enjoy paying full price for it. It might be wise to rent Superstars V8 Racing first if possible, or pick it up when you see it cheap somewhere. Or you might be better off putting the money in your piggy bank and saving towards Forza Motorsport 3.