There are fewer songs than tracks, so they do repeat. And the loops are a nice touch, straight out of the F-Zero series. All are well-designed with nice placement of straight shots for boosting and corners for drifting. The tracks eventually leave the metro area and head across the desert, into an ice world, and then into a lost city. The tracks are bright and colorful, and while I have not seen the actual film, they look pretty close to the snippets seen in the trailers.

The style stuff, which reminded me of the Kudos feature from Glu's mobile version of Project Gotham Racing, helps elevate Speed Racer above a steering sim where you just dodge other cars. You can bank two boosts which rip your car down straight stretches or through giant loop-de-loops. Every time you fill the meter, you get a boost which is activated by pressing up on the d-pad (or the 2 key). The more stylish moves you pull off, such as drifting around a corner or using your car's jump jacks to bounce over a rival cars (something woefully underused in the game - why not have obstacles you have to jump over, too?), you faster you fill a blue meter on the left side of the screen. Style is directly linked to your nitro boosters. While racing, you must concentrate on style. If you have a fancy thumb, I suggest you play the game on hard so there is a semblance of a challenge for you. The harder difficulty does offer more a challenge, and I did come in second a couple times. I was always first and once I reached the head of the pack during the first lap of each race, I never saw another car again. I played the entire game through on the normal setting and never came in second or third. The first few races require that Speed only comes in third in a pack of six cars, but by the end of the game, you must come in first to claim victory. During story mode, you must complete a series of races with increasingly difficult requirements.

Only after the final race in the story campaign are you given something to read, and it's an afterthought. The only 'event' between the races is the unlocking of cars and tracks to use in the other two modes. Maybe there is no story in the movie and this isn't much of a slight, but there is absolutely no drama between the races.

Speed Racer has three modes: Story, free race, and challenge.

Speed racer flash game