This is an IGN opinion piece from Phil Iwaniuk, decorated winner of many Gran Turismo Sunday Cups who learned to feel, not think in 1999's Star Wars: Episode 1 Racer. It's a philosophy that may impair his opinions, but yields many a purple sector.

How many times have you bought a cheap banger, entered it in a series of races called something like the ‘Rookies Cup’, and used the proceeds to unlock new events? Since Gran Turismo arrived in 1997 and pioneered that vehicular rags-to-riches structure, it feels like we’ve repeated that identical racing game campaign mode grind countless times.

In fact, when you pause and look back at the great and good of racing games, it seems like all of them, from Need For Speed to Dirt Rally, were about putting you at the bottom of a big pile of events and having you gradually climb your way up to the faster races in the best cars. The genre’s been laser-focussed on innovating when it comes to visuals, physics models, tire simulation and the like, but it’s been stuck on the same solo gameplay structure for way too long.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer flies its speeders against the grain in many ways. More than just a game that gets both the cinematic IP and the feeling of racing right, it’s an experience that seems to be visiting from a parallel universe. One where the familiar hand-holding game design philosophy didn’t take root, and the Gran Turismo career mode didn’t become ubiquitous.

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