The game consists of four single-player game types, four multi-player game types, a fully-featured and integrated track editor, a paint-scheme editor for the cars, and the most complete race replay facilities I've ever seen.

The tracks are set in three distinct environments (Island, Bay, and Coast), each of which presents unique visual and gameplay styles (along with its own musical soundtrack). Drive at ridiculously high-speeds over wide roads and huge jumps in the Island setting; Drive a road-hugging 4x4 through downtown streets and navigate precarious aerial platforms in the Bay; and lastly master the precise handling needed to get your roadster through the narrow and demanding Coast tracks without spinning out. Each car handles utterly differently to the others, creating vastly different challenges, and all three feature in each of the game modes available.

The single-player modes are: Race, Platform, Puzzle, and Crazy. You have immediate access to the starting tracks for each of the first three types, however Crazy tracks are unlocked by way of success in all the three other types, so you have no access to any of these to begin with. For better or worse, unlocking content is a major component of the game. You will start with limited access to the multitude of tracks in the game, and good performance will grant you access to each successive track and series in turn. I'm generally not a fan of this, but Sunrise makes it work, not least due to its forgiving difficulty controls which can be changed at any time should you become frustrated. At the lowest difficulty setting, only bronze medals are required to progress in most cases, which is not a challenge that should cause many problems to most until the very last tracks (as you will note as you first speed past the dawdling bronze-time car :) Silver medals can present a more noteable challenge, and gold medals will require some real effort and skill in most cases. For the really dedicated, you can also try to beat the author's best time for a track!

"Race" mode is what it sounds like -- complete the required number of laps in the time necessary to move on to the next track. Each of the set times for gold, silver, and bronze is represented by a car of that colour, plus there are intermediate cars which have paint jobs which transition from one colour to the other as appropriate. These are effectively 'ghost' cars, and will always drive an identical race. As there are no collisions between cars you can't interfere with them in any way, but you can certainly learn from them if you are struggling to keep up with the pace, and in a close race they provide a real competitive edge to things as you try to catch up or stay ahead.

"Platform" tracks are stunt tracks. You will encounter more jumps, loops, and tricky manoeuvres in this mode than in any other. If you fall off the track, you must reset to the most recently-passed checkpoint, and your overall goal is to reach the finish line using as few resets as possible (or none at all if you want a gold medal). Time taken is irrelevant so there are no 'opponent' cars, but your best previous performance is present as a ghost car. I love this mode, and some of the stunts that you carry out in this campaign made me want to cheer out loud for the sheer brilliance of the design! I should note that all resets are instananeous. Press the button, and you're immediately back at the checkpoint and ready to go (or if you press the 'restart' button, you're immediately back at the starting line), no waiting, no frustration. Although Platform is the only mode where the number of resets matters, you can reset and restart in all the game modes (naturally resetting tends to affect your time in time-based game modes, however!)

"Puzzle" introduces the integrated track editor, and requires you to "fill in the blanks" in an incomplete track. Fastest time from start to finish is once again the goal, and it is up to you to design the most efficient (or most devious) track using the available components in order to achieve your target time. A gold medal in Puzzle mode usually requires thinking a bit outside the square, as the more obvious route will simply be too slow. As much as this is a thoroughly enjoyable game type in itself, it is also a quite ingenious training facility for the full track editor.

"Crazy" pretty much lives up to its name, and as previously indicated is something of a "bonus" mode for doing well in the other three. Success in any of the many series available in the other modes will unlock a new Crazy track for you to try. You start by racing about a dozen other cars to the end of a generally-short track (albeit with a few tricks or tricky manoeuvres required along the way). Provided you beat at least one of the (original) opponents, the slowest opponent will be replaced by a 'ghost' recording of your own performance. You then race again, and after every successful race another of the original cars is replaced by a recording of your own car. Eventually there is a confusing mass of cars that look just like you, and if you fail to vary your chossen route, it can be hard to work out which car you are actually in control of! Medals are awarded according to how many cars you manage to replace before an overall time limit is reached.

With each series (usually around 6-8 tracks, all in the same environment) there is an associated "serie cup". To win the cup at a given level (bronze, silver, or gold) you must complete each track in sequence, and succeed at that same level (or better). If you fail to gain the relevant medal on any track, you must start over. To access the last couple of series you must have some cups under your belt, which may seem like a daunting prospect, however with the bronze requirements being as forgiving as they are, this is not the ordeal it sounds. Some extra practice may be required, however if you are consistently managing to attain silver or gold times for tracks, you will very likely win a bronze serie cup on your first attempt. Winning a cup gives you a real sense of achievement, too! I'll comment that the mere idea of the gold cups scares the bejeezus out of me, but I do at least have some silver cups to my name :)

The most important thing is that this is not a car racing game. It looks a lot like one at first glance, but realism was definitely not on the developers' minds when they designed this beauty. They've made their own rules, and it's as much about puzzles as it is about driving. The focus is entirely on You vs the Track, and so even when other cars are there too, you cannot collide with them. Any number of cars can happily occupy the same point in space to no ill effect (and if this sounds like a bad thing, you're still thinking it's a car racing game!)

I assume by environment it means it has more than that big stadium for a backdrop.