I received Race Pro and Sega Megadrive (Genesis to people in the US) Ultimate Collection in the post today and have decided to give my initial impressions before I review them properly next week.

Race Pro

Race Pro on first impressions seems to be a very good racing simulation that in some but not all respects in better than Forza 2. The graphics are really good and blow those of Forza 2 away (though graphics were not it’s strong point to begin with). The controls like those in Forza appear to be fairly unforgiving and you do have the ability to tune your car like in Forza 2 but not to the same degree, it is also not possible to upgrade your car either.

The tracks chosen for Race Pro are fairly varied and while their are some old favourites most notable Laguna Seca, several are original in that they dont tend to be simualted that often and there is no Nurburgring for a change. I have not had the opportunity to play the multiplayer yet so cannot comment on it. There are a few different single player modes and my initial thoughts are that it could have been done better but this is just from playing for a few hours so I could change my mind.

At the moment I suspect it will be given a rating of 8/10 and I still think that Forza 2 is overall the best serious racer that I have played on the Xbox 360

Sega Megadrive Ultimate Collection

This is a fairly substantial collection of around 40 titles, some of which have been released as XBLA games. The few I have played reminded me just how far we have come technology wise and I suspect that once I have got the gamerscore from it, that I will be trading the game in as it may be some things are best left in the past.

At the moment I suspect it will be given a 6 or 7/10 but this may change upwards once I have played it by itself without having been contaminated by current generation graphics.