I went back and played this for the first time in about a year and a half. It took forever for the game to get synched up, but it was worth it. There was an achievement I wanted to get, "We Meet Again!". To get it, you have to win a showdown race at every Car Meet. I was missing one, but I didn't know which one. I used my ace in the hole, my D500 Lancia Fulvia. I get a massive head start over higher powered cars, it's quick, lightweight and handles like on rails. The only problem was waiting for live players to enter the car meet. Not a lot of people still playing the game. Other than myself, the car meets were full of drivatars. I had to wait as much as 30 minutes before I would see a live player finally enter the car meet. Fortunately I had a big stack of unread comic books to keep me entertained while waiting.
My Lancia won easily in Castelletto, Nice and Sisteron, but I ran into trouble at Saint-Martin. It's not a regular race, it's a drag race at the airfield. My Lancia didn't have a chance. So I switched to my S2/998 Hennessey Venom. Then I waited. And waited, and waited. Finally, someone in an S2/998 Audi RS2 wagon finally showed up. He was fast off the line and pulled out a big lead. I honestly thought I was going to lose because of all my wheelspin at launch. But then the Hennessey finally showed what it could do with a 250 mph top speed. I won by half a second and finally got the achievement.
And you know what? This game still looks gorgeous, even six+ years later.
...For a few minutes... before the rain came back, and then i drove around the map and the off roads, hills, it was great. I spent ages just driving around. Then i headed back to the main land and the big hilltop old towns, and the views are still great driving around the coasts and then inland.
