This was one of my first games as a kid, and back then it was one of the greatest games of that time. Playing it now, I realize how minimalistic games were back then. The first 65% of the campaign are pretty fun, you work up your way pretty quickly, unlock new cars and maps and can feel the enemies slowly getting better. Somewhere around the 70% mark though it starts to get repetitive. The map isnt very large, the music playlist is very short, and the races don't vary much, at some point you don't really get or even need new cars. so for many hours, you're racing what feels like the same races against the same enemies. And once you enter the top 3 of the blacklist, the game very suddenly gets immensely harder, not in its races but in its challenges, demanding you to complete police chases with incredibly high numbers. Even after hours of legitimately trying my hardest, it was just impossible to beat without boring and therefor disappointing cheesing strategies. I literally had to cheat my way up the last two spots if I wanted to race against Razor, which makes my win just a little bit less rewarding.

At the end of the day, I'm conflicted. I loved this game. And I still think it's a great game, in large parts due to the very alive modding scene that keeps pushing the graphics, cars, and technology to their limits. But the 45 hours it took me to beat the campaign of this game did get painful at the end.