But throughout all this, there’s been one gleaming headlight of hope at the end of the very long, racer-devoid tunnel the 360 finds itself in at the moment: SimBin’s forthcoming 360 exclusive, RACE Pro. With the developer’s reputation for delivering hardcore racing action well established thanks to its various PC games, we were understandably keen to sample how its maiden console game is shaping up – something we got to do at this year's Games Convention.

And on the whole, it’s coming on rather well. During our time with the game, we were able to take three types of cars for a spin – a World Touring Car Championship machine, it’s fictitious ‘Extreme’ variant, and an Aston Martin DBR9 GT1 car. Although the finished game will feature a wide variety of machines (from Mini Coopers to Formula 3000 cars), it’s the World Touring Car Championship that remains its signature series – and so it seemed only fitting that we chose that as our starting point.

A 'wide variety' of touring cars will feature – such as the SEAT Leon, Chevy Lacetti and Alfa Romeo 156 from last year’s WTCC, along with a host of other S2000 spec cars – but we chose Andy Prilaux’s Team GB BMW 320si E90. While RACE’s wide spectrum of cars may make comparisons with GRID inevitable, it soon became apparent that RACE Pro is a very different beast to Codemasters’ critically acclaimed hit. Where GRID’s arcade styling gave it an exaggerated sense of flair, so RACE Pro feels more grounded and controlled. It’s generally trickier to get the cars sliding about than in GRID, and when the tail does start to creep out, you’ll generally find the speed drop off greater – as you’d expect in real life. But where the Codies title would occasionally throw a bit of snap oversteer or suchlike your way, RACE allows you to sense when your car is about to over- or understeer much sooner, giving you the chance to correct it before it costs you time.

The downside to this is that RACE Pro does lack some of the instantaneous thrill you find with the likes of PGR4 or GRID. However, once you start learning to read your car and start seeing the lap times fall, that all important sense of satisfaction returns. Now that we were feeling comfortable with our 275bhp S2000 BMW, we decided to park that up and take its big brother for a spin. As the correctly-spelled-for-once 'Extreme' moniker suggests, these are tuned up, ficticious versions of the WTCC cars, featuring more downforce, bigger tires, rear wheel drive as standard and over twice the power (600bhp). Indeed, SimBin itself describes these machines as be more like the mental race cars found in Germany’s DTM, rather than the more familiar S2000 saloons and hatches found in the WTCC and BTCC. And unsurprisingly, our Extreme BMW felt very different to its WTCC counterpart. Thanks to the greater mechanical and aerodynamic grip, the car took corners much more smoothly than the plucky little S2000 car, and was much faster out of them thanks to the additional power.

Finally, we then took the Aston DBR9 for a spin. Although common logic would suggest that this would handle much the same as the Extreme car – with comparable power ratings and big tires – the two couldn’t have been more different. While the Extreme BMW swallowed up corners with only the faintest hint of understeer, the Aston felt much more lively, requiring greater throttle control and more steering corrections to see it through a bend. While there wasn’t time to sample the dramatically different single seater F-3000 and Formula BMW cars, our experiences with the three cars we did drive was enough to convince us that SimBin’s Lizard engine is more than capable of delivering a wide variety of handling styles.

Likewise, RACE Pro shows potential in other areas as well. There should be few complaints about the all-important multiplayer elements, which will offer wheel-banging fun for up to 12 participants. Nor does it seem we’ll be getting bored of RACE Pro in a hurry. SimBin has an ambitious DLC programme lined up, which will see additional tracks and cars made available to download on a regular basis. This is expected to commence two to three weeks after the game’s launch. The Swedish developer is even trying to shoehorn in a casual gaming element with the hot-seat mode. This sees two drivers squaring off against each other in two cars. But rather than racing against each other all the time, they take turns to control their respective vehicle, with the AI taking over the reigns in between goes.

But while SimBin certainly appears to have nailed the gameplay, there are still a few areas that need touching up. The main offender here is the graphics. As you’ll have no doubt noticed from the various screens dotted around the site, RACE Pro looks a tad basic – something that sadly came across while playing the game as well. As with the gameplay, all the basics are covered; everything is as it should be – from the modelling of the cars to the architecture and layout of the circuits – and moves at a solid enough frame rate. Nevertheless, after the wonderfully polished, supremely detailed graphics of GRID, RACE’s more functional visuals do give the game a slightly dated feel.

Still, with the core gameplay shaping up nicely, a wealth of different vehicles promised and the potentially great online elements, RACE Pro should be a tidy little racer when it’s released this November.