The graphics are pretty good, some of the sprites are a bit pixellated, 
but overall I liked them.  The framerate is nice, it's not 60fps, but 
it's acceptable.  The background scenery is fairly complex and looks 
great.  Most of the sound is very crisp, and the music is pretty good and 
appropriate.  The FMV is pretty bad (not picture quality, content), and the 
wench who insults you after each race reminds me of Ralph Maccio for 
some reason :)

On to the game.  The speed is good, and the racing is fun.  It reminds me 
quite a bit of Road Rash on the 3DO.  Of course it does have a 2-player 
split screen mode that RR should have, but didn't.  The combat is much 
more aggressive than RR, there don't seem to be any peaceful characters 
in ESPN.  The races are very hard.  I played this game for 3-4hrs, and I 
don't think I finished ahead of 4th or 5th the whole time.  You get 
points/money/etc. for going through gates, and it seems like trying to 
hit all of the gates is somewhat exclusive to winning the race.  The 
manual mentions a bonus cash round for going through all of the gate, 
but as yet I've not done this.

There are 5 tracks (one is on the demo CD - I don't know if the demo CD 
has the complete track since I haven't played the demo much): Italy, San 
Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Utah, South America (? I think).  The tracks are 
very different graphically.  Most of them have tunnel/cayon sections 
where the built-in PSX reverb is used for a neat sound effect.  They all 
seem to get more difficult (obstacle-wise) toward the end, which 
contributes to the overall difficulty.  If you wipe out more than 3 or 4 
times, you're probably not going to place very high, and if you wipe out 
at all in the last section of the track, you're hosed.  e.g.  Once I 
wiped out in 5th place, and when I got going again I was in 12th :(  
Another minor annoyance is playing without a memory card.  There is an 
elaborate set of menus between each race in season mode just to 
continue.  Also, it will give you a password to continue, but it's like a 
30-digit number.

Overall, the game is pretty fun.  I probably won't be buying it however, 
since racing games are not usually my favorite (especially when you 
have to race perfectly to win a race in the EASY mode).  If you've played 
the demo, you've got a really good idea of what the gameplay is like.
-- 
Jay Stelly                 "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father
yukon@netcom.com            prepare to die!"