New Star GP

Before I knew it, I was fine-tuning tire strategies, managing staff perks, and feathering corners at 140 MPH, all in a game that looks like it was pulled from a Virtua Racing cabinet someone left running since 1993. New Star GP, the latest from New Star Games, feels like a weird dream where Sega Saturn-era physics and modern career sim ideas peacefully coexist, and somehow… it rules.

You start your career in the 1980s, back when F1 engines screamed like banshees and pit stops felt optional. But what begins as a simple arcade racer quickly reveals its true colors: yes, boosting through iconic tracks and checkpoint races is a blast, but between events you’re also rebuilding engines, hiring pit crew, and deciding whether to equip faster gearboxes or get a sponsor who buys them for you.

Don’t let the simple visuals fool you. Beneath the blocky beauty lies a satisfying gearbox of mechanics: tire wear matters, fuel load decisions affect race length, and rival drivers will remember when you dunked on them mid-chicane. The retro soundtrack? Delightfully cheesy. The engine audio per decade? Shockingly accurate. 2000s cars whine gloriously, while the 2010s sound… well, accurate in their own disappointing way.

Also: it has a character named Ayrton Serafino. That alone is worth 500 nostalgic points.

New Star GP doesn’t just borrow from racing’s golden age, it retools it into a career-driven arcade-sim hybrid that feels like discovering a hidden F1 cartridge from another timeline. It shouldn’t work this well. But it does.