Fast and the Furious to beat NFS?
June 15th 2006 11:23
The Need for Speed titles have been coming in thick and fast over the past few years and have really adopted the ‘street racer’ theme which was made very popular after the Fast and the Furious films. Players can see this in games such as NFS Underground and Most Wanted, and also in a handful of other non-NFS titles such as Juiced and Midnight Club Racer. With all these titles being released (and finally after a long drought of such games…Hot Rod anyone?) I kept asking the question…how come there isn’t a Fast and Furious game? Even the manga series Initial D had an arcade game. Finally, Namco Bandai games will be releasing a Fast and Furious title on the PS2.
This title is going to be released nicely in tune with the 3rd film in the F & F series – Tokyo Drift, and although it might be a quick attempt to grab profits during all the hype of the film, the game actually looks pretty good. Essentially, the game follows a similar structure to the NFS Underground series. Players travel around the streets of Tokyo and look for racing challenges (in their hot rod of course). Over time players who win street races and drift like madmen will gather enough money do visit the local dealerships (located on a massive map of the city) and upgrade/paint their car with a large selection of turbochargers, nitrous systems and tires (to name a few). A really cool location also found in the game is the mountain climbs which are featured on an almost religious-like basis in the Initial D cartoon series (and the latest film!).
Drifting is of course an essential part of this game, with a special drift meter displayed on the screen to warn the player if they are going to loose control of their car. Players can also drift in over 7 ways which is something new in this street racing genre of games. I really like the fact that games developers such as Namco are looking at previously released games and really making drastic improvements where those titles have failed.
The game will also ship with online, LAN, career and split-screen multiplayer modes which are the standard these days. Online play should be fun, especially when using your own little modified baby in a street race against someone really in Japan!
Look for this title at the end of August this year.
Pictures taken from Gamespot.
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