Media5r collection of games: Racing

This is the second attempt from THQ to somehow equal the success of Need for Speed series. Unfortunately Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights remains just a pale arcade-racing game available for Playstation 3, XBOX 360, and PC. Continuing in the same tradition: pimp the car, put some bling-bling, and race, Juiced 2 is nothing else but a clone of Need for Speed Underground with some new but not so important additions: design your own character, driver DNA, improved modding editor for exterior and interior, online career and crew (you can download anyones DNA and use it in your team to complete the career), and a new betting system.

Character's Editor
As you start the game the first thing to do is to design your own character. You can choose from five models, either male or female. All the models have modular body-parts, so you can easily change their outlook. You can edit their eyes, hair, brows, clothes, face, nose, color skin etc. But in the end your character will look similar to the original, if you don't choose to make it look hilarious. Anyway, it's a good addition to the game and enough detailed to make you play a little with it.

Character's DNA
DNA is a new and original addition to the game. Every opponent (including your character) has a DNA scheme. This scheme shows the main abilities of the driver and how is he progressing. The scheme has three branches representing three different specialties: Circuit, Drifting and Gambling. It's obvious, the Circuit and Drift shows the capabilities of the driver in these two events based on: overtake (how much you overtake), nitrous (how you use the nitro), spooking (how many opponents you have spooked), powerslide (how many times you use the powerslide in a curve), cornering (cornering without touching the walls), points (points earned in drift events), chain (how long can you drift). But Gambling is about additional earnings such as pink slips (how many cars have you won), driver bets (how many bets have you won against other competitors), and spectator bets (a new way of earning money by betting without racing).

The good thing about the DNA is that anyone else can download your DNA and race against it. Of course you can do the same thing with others DNA in the DNA lab which is the replacement for the Quickrace option. Here you can also race against some real celebrities like: Samuel Hubinette (swedish drift driver), Djibril Cisse (French soccer player), Smudo (German hip hopper and member of a racing team), etc.

Cars

After you end up editing you character, the next step is to get a new car in order to begin racing. Oh, I forgot. Before acquiring any car, you have to compete in two races to qualify for the rookie league. I f you have also complete this step, it's time for your new ride. Fifteen cars are available at the beginning from twelve manufacturers, including cars from around the globe. You can choose a Japanese car such as Nissan 200SX, or an American muscle car such as Camaro Z28, or a little European bug called Citroen C2 VTR.

Pay attention to any technical detail of the car. A rear-wheel traction will be much better in drift races than a front-wheel one. Also every car has a bar which shows how much you can tune it. Don't forget the fact that you have to complete ten leagues, which demand even better vehicles, so look up to which league every vehicle can compete. Further in the game more cars will be available to try out and buy (exotics, or modern muscle cars).

Customization
If the car number is getting impressive (71 cars available at League 4), more than 2000 decals are available from which you can choose almost unlimited combinations for 50 layers of decals for each car. All these and lots of cool parts and engine upgrades are part of the modding process, the key feature of this game. You can spend a lot of time and money only by customizing your car in each way you want. The editing tool used to customize your car is very intuitive and gives the player a high control on almost any aspect of the process. Either you change bodyparts, or upgrade the engine, either you paint the bodywork in metallic, pearl, matt, gloss, flake, or thin film, or put some decals, everything is done very simple. To unlock upgrades for the engine you need to complete different objectives such as complete a lap within the given time, score a given number of points in a drift race, complete a lap within the given speed, etc. So you don't have only to earn money to buy them, but also to "work" for them. The developers tried to go even further by giving the chance to actually see how the bodykits are attached to the body (through an Explode View), and to view the interior of the car (similar to Test Drive Unlimited). A plus for the fact that you can add steering wheel, and racing seats to every car, so the interior view is not just a widget.

Locations

As wide the offer seems to be, the locations are not very varied. Most of the races take place in cities : Paris, London, San Francisco, Tokyo, Sydney, Rome, and in a reasonable priced winter resort in Germany. Every location has several track variations. The layout of each track is similar to what Need for Speed Underground had to offer us back in 2003. Lots of square curves and walls to hit. Unlike NFS, there is no traffic here, the explanation being that you take part in legal championship: Hot Import Nights. As legal as it may seem, races take place only in the night and your income will be raised not only by winnings but also by betting. At the start of each race, you can choose one of the competitors and bet against him.

Betting

Betting was something new from the start of Juice series. And something useful in the whole mechanics of the game. You won't have enough money if you don't bet. Now you can either bet against another competitor whom you'll have to beat, or as a spectator. As a spectator you can watch the whole race from the view of the most high rated driver. If this is the one that you bet on, you can cheer him so that he drives more aggressive. If he is not the one, than you can use the three "boo" so he can be scared and make mistakes.
Every driver has a stake. It's logical that you can't win enough money if you bet on the best driver, but unfortunately most of the time he will win, so in general your chances to have a bigger profit with a slower driver are not so high.

Game for farmers
As you begin racing in the first league you will be surprised by how many type of races you have to complete so that you can unlock new engine upgrades and win the league: eliminator championships, crew races, drift obliterator (win the race while earning a given number of drifting points per lap) championships, muscle car events, prototype events, beat specific drivers, bet against different drivers, spook a specific driver, etc. But every type of race resumes to circuit and drift races. As you progress further in the championship the number of races is increasing make it much harder for anyone to complete the game. The whole game gave me the feeling of a farmer's game. For every little reward you have to race. You will also spend a lot of time in the garage tweaking and customizing your car. If you are truly a farmer in online games, Juiced 2 gives you the opportunity to prove yourself that not only RPG's can be demanding but also racing games.

Online mode

Online feature is integrated in the Career mode. The Online Career and Crew offers the possibility to trade cars and DNA with other online users. Based on the log book specifications, the value of a car can be increased. This log book is actually a record which tells the current owner how many people have owned the car and what races had participate. There is also the Online betting system which allows the player to bet during the race, see how many people are betting on and against them and what are their odds. Juiced 2 is Games For Windows certified so the online feature will be common for PC and XBOX 360 users.

Gameplay: 63

It's hard to consider this game valuable. First of all because there are too many racing-games of this type. Although a lot more easier than its predecessor and with some new elements, this game cannot rise up from the mediocrity level. Even though from the beginning the career mode gives you a lot of objectives to complete, after two hours you realize that everything is repeating and only hardcore fan will bear this game until the end. The A.I. is lame. If you overtake one of the opponents he will stick to you but he will be almost unable to overtake you again. If you are back in the row, the A.I. reduces the speed in order to give you a chance to get back in the game. Good for the newbies, but this genre is no more a wonder, so most of the casual gamers have played something similar. While the customization editor is intuitive and gives a lot of fun using it, the menu is extremely divided and somehow chaotic with all those "glamorous" animations and huge diversity of color palette. It looks damn cheap!

Graphics: 70
It definitely suffers from port process. Like most of the new games, Juiced 2 is a multiplatform creation, but not very successful from the graphics point of view. The cars are looking nice, but the developers didn't respect the real dimensions. From some angles, the cars look like Matchbox model cars. A minus for the decals which look blurry placed on the car. At least the gameplay takes place mostly in the night, so the flaws of the graphics are not so visible. The environment is full of low textures, as a result of a direct port from the XBOX 360 version. The feeling of speed is questionable. If you don't run the game at full details, you won't feel any thrill on the track. Hard to say something about physics. The handling of the car is smooth compared to Pro Street, but you have to admit that this is an arcade. The drift mode is the most amazing one and uses a different handling approach, so that you can easily drift. At the moment Juiced 2 has the most balanced drift mode and easily comes in handy for anyone.