When in motion a trail of sparks will spit out from the rear, explosions will occur on contact with another vehicle and if too much damage is taken then smoke and flames will billow from your engine. Tire wheels smoke nicely when your vehicle takes off and depending on your view, you can even watch the tires turn in the direction you are making the vehicle go towards. There is also good use of texture mapping on the cars to display the damage your vehicle takes. Every collision leaves it's mark on the bodywork, scratches to paint work, hood ripped off, in fact when your damage bar reads 'danger level' there ain't much left but a heap of burning scrap metal. Other things that look pretty nice is the breaking of glass when you ram into a building or the other cars that you pass or decide to smash into.
Explosions are also pretty good, but pixellate a bit when up close.
The game also keeps up a pretty good framerate. On the flip side, the graphics tend to break up horribly. Smash a building or a car and you often find yourself in the middle of it, with the polygons clipping like there's no tomorrow. Just take the bus for a spin and you will see what I am talking about here. This happens on a very consistent basis, many times making it difficult to tell where you are in proximity to your surroundings.