It seems like every month there's another racing game arriving on the Xbox World gaming den doorstep, there certainly is no shortage of them that's for sure. World Racing, formerly known as Mercedes Benz : World Racing (and from now on, WR) seeks to give fans of the genre something a little bit different, that is, one brand of cars, but every model imaginable, accurately modeled down to the smallest details.

You might think that having cars from one manufacturer would limit a racing game but Mercedes Benz make exceptional cars so if you're like the majority of the population and can't afford to buy one (like me), finally here's your chance to take one for a good old fashioned Aussie thrashing. During the game you will unlock over 100 of them from every class that they make. All the classes are represented, with a number of different variations. The A, C, E, S, CL, SL, SLK, CLK, and ML classes all make an appearance as well as the 300 SL 'Gullwing', a number of testwagens, kompressor models, and also a range of test and prototype models.

There are certainly plenty of models to unlock, it's just a shame that visually you don't see any difference between, say, the A160, A140, A160CDI, A170 and the A190 from the 'A' class. They all look the same and it's only the power and acceleration that seems to differ. Other classes suffer from this as well.

In the games defence though, the car models are extremely accurately modeled. They quite simply look amazing. While they don't sport any environment reflections the detail on the cars, the colours and the models look fantastic. The guys at Syentic have done an incredible job recreating the look of each car and Mercedes Benz supplied them with the original CAD data from the cars to help make them look as realistic as possible. Every car also has a true 'cockpit view' that puts you inside the car and you can move the right thumbstick to take a 'virtual' look around while you drive. It's certainly great when you want to take a quick look at some of the scenery! The cockpits look great and very realistic and little things like a working speedometer only help to add another layer of quality to the title. Even all the little details like the driver and the custom licence plates sport clean, crisp graphics.

The levels comprise of around 40-50 kilometers of landscape and a draw distance that seems to go off forever (it's said to be about 6 km's) and when you're on some of the mountain tracks and take a look around, it's easy to believe! Not once did I see any major frame rate drops and at all times the racing action was silky smooth even with the other cars in front of me (which they often were) and the landscape stretching off into the horizon.

The levels are nicely detailed and range from a few Australian locations (not really recognizable however), mountain tracks, city tracks as well as, of all places, Area 51 complete with UFO's and Stealth Bombers. In all the tracks though there is heaps happening. Helicopters fly around, boats sail in the water and planes zip through the skies, you wont see the same thing at the same point on each lap as well which helps quell the repetitiveness that scripted events in games usually take.

While other titles like Racing Evoluzione might contain more 'realistic' looking levels, and Project Gotham might contain better looking city tracks, of course this is all subjective and World Racing certainly stands on its own feet as a great looking title. When I first loaded the game up, I thought that the mountains looked like something out of the landscape generating program, Bryce (if you've seen it) and I wasn't overly impressed, but as I progressed the levels grew on me and the excellent variations in the types of tracks on offer won me over. The more you play the game, the more detail you notice as well.

As well as normal test circuits, country side levels and street tracks, from time to time you get to bash around in off road tracks and thrashing a Mercedes 4WD around over jumps is certainly a load of fun!

One thing that you will notice, especially in the off road tracks, the occasional collision with an opponent will happen and that the damage to the cars is kind of weird. If you slam into poles (as trees, fire hydrants and pedestrians let you go through them) and other cars you will see dents on the car but not scratched paintwork or broken windows. On one of the 'Challenge' levels that involves driving a 4WD up a mountain and into a castle, I slid my car off a ledge, down a massive drop to slam into the road at the bottom and the car showed no damage at all. I was expecting to see the roof crumpled in, the windows shatter out but I just drove away as if nothing had happened so some of the other racing titles still hold the edge in that area.

I hear you ask, "So what's the point of the game?" Well, the ultimate goal is to become the number one ranked driver. The great thing is that you don't need to win every race to achieve this. You can finish third for example, but if you haven't left the track or smashed into other cars some of your drivers 6 attributes will still increase. They are placement, experience, performance, skill, fairness and discipline and it's great to see other skills reward you rather than be tempted to simply retry levels to come first every time in the fear of missing out on unlocking parts of the game. Progress through the game will still reward you and unlock more cars and tracks even if you don't win every race. The developers say that it's possible to obtain the number 1 ranking without actually winning a race, naturally you will not be able to unlock everything this way however.

One feature I enjoyed was the 'Free Ride' mode. After unlocking a number of tracks and cars, it was great fun to load up a track, pick a car and just go for a drive and check out the levels. A nice addition that should be in every racing game.

It must be mentioned that the menus in the game, at first, will most likely cause heaps of confusion and take some getting used to though after a while you get used to them and, while weird at first, it's obvious that a lot of thought went into them as you can be racing in as little as 3 presses of the 'A' button.

One thing that will make or break a racing title, and especially one such as World Racing that's meant to be all about quality, is the handling and the opponents. It can be adjusted in the game options from full simulation to arcade and it wont take you long to tweak it to find the settings that you prefer. The opponent A.I can also be adjusted to make the game as easy or as hard as you choose. A few reviews have mentioned that the A.I is pretty sloppy but I didn't find this at all. At the start I could not win a single race so I just dropped the level of the A.I down, I still don't win every race (that would be boring) but it's pretty straight forward to find a nice difficulty level that you will be comfortable with.

I do have a few concerns with the handling though, it's responsive enough but still doesn't quite feel right to me. This might be just me though, but the handling felt a touch sluggish and floaty. Some of the more advanced cars that you unlock feel better but still share this feeling of 'floatiness'. This becomes pretty apparent in the replays when you can see where you were steering the car but it continues to go in a straight line longer than it should before it turns. There is no detail under the car modeled either, so in the replays you can look straight through the wheels and they appear just to be floating in mid air and not physically connected to the car.