Daytona USA

STORY / GAMEPLAY
As Daytona USA is a racing game, there's no actual storyline. All you have to do is race and race and race, until you win. The track design is excellent and the level of difficulty in each track is well implemented. There are three courses available: The Three-Seven Speedway track which is actually the beginners' track and is a classic Daytona course with only one curve, The Dinosaur Canyon track, which has plenty of long straights and plenty of hard curves to drift and the final course, the Sea-Side Street Galaxy track which is a pretty long course with only two long straights and plenty of hair-raising curves.
There are only two modes to play: the Arcade Mode where you race against 40 opponents and the clock and the Saturn Mode where you race against up to four cars but no clock this time. Note that each car has its own acceleration, power and grip capabilities. The controls are responsive and the overall experience is neat. The beginners' track (Three-Seven Speedway), actually based on the real Daytona circuit, is a very simple track with only one curve to cause trouble. The advanced course (Dinosaur Canyon) is probably the best course of the game and pushes you car to the limit since you can step on it and power-slide around.
Although its slower frame-rate compared to the original, the game is equally addictive. The Saturn port holds up fairly well with vehicles that share similar handling to the arcade and still get horribly smashed when you crash.
Overall, Daytona USA is an impressive port of a flawless arcade, although its few glitches.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
Unfortunately there are a few original catchy details missing from the Saturn. The races take place during daylight only, there are no weather changes and many of the shadow-effects are missing as well (found only some shadows inside the tunnel and under the bridges). Fortunately, a few other (and nice) effects are supported, such the effect when crashing other cars and walls and the reflecting sky effects on the car's surface.
The overall audio experience is fantastic and the original arcade tunes are re-composed now with actual instruments and the racing sound effects plus the quality of the race announcer's speech do the job extremely well.