Street Racing Syndicate

The streets are shiny, reflecting the bright lights of the city’s night glow. Three other cars are intent on beating you on this street course – a course consisting of hairpins, cutbacks, sidewalks, newspaper bins and few rules. The idea is to cross the finish line first. How you do that is up to you.

Namco’s Street Racing Syndicate for the PlayStation 2 is a joyful street-racing romp that will have players vying for status among this crowd, and picking up some bucks along the way. The more status you have, and the more money you earn, the better ride you can have.

And improving your ride is a multi-process. You can upgrade parts, or eventually you can buy a better car and begin upgrading it. From tune-ups to suspension to exhaust and tires, all the aspects of fine-tuning a street racing machine is here. Don’t know much about what any of that does but still like to race? No problem. The game will show you what each improvement will do in a very simplistic stat sheet before you buy it.

This is a title that has a lot of gameplay wrapped into it. GameZone was fortunate enough to get hooked up with a preview build of this title, which releases in August, so we popped the hood and looked inside.

The game features 50 unique cars, which can be unlocked. There are more than 15 aftermarket part manufacturers offering upgrades for your vehicle. There are 20 challenges for you to take, 72 races, 52 videos to unlock, and 18 girlfriends you can get by accomplishing racing tasks.

And should you pull an illegal move when that big black and white comes and cuts your groove (apologies to Sammy Hagar), a meter pops up and shows you whether you stand a chance of being busting or escaping. And don’t expect to just having to outrun one police car – others will join the pursuit, and you will hear the radio chatter as the dispatcher alerts the Los Angeles police to the pursuit.

The game, as mentioned, takes place in Los Angeles, though you will not see any real landmarks during your cruise around the city. You can pull up a map which shows the locations of racing series, individual challenges, and – of course – your best asset, your garage. You can either drive to the locations or jump directly there by using the map.

As you race, should you make errors in the handling and rub walls, or get sideswiped by other vehicles, your car will show the damage. Each series you run is a best-of-three races featuring three different tracks of varying length.

The game’s controls are very simple and easy on the player. The initial races are also very easy to win, if you drive smart. There were some framerate problems with the preview, but that should be cleared by the release.

Graphically this game looks very good. The driving mechanics are solid and until you bleed the brakes too much to grab hard, you can execute terrific powerslides around corners. There are some repetitive cutscenes, and all the streets look like they’ve been watered down for maximum shine, but they don’t race that way. The soundtrack is also very nice.

Street Racing Syndicate features open-city and closed-track races, underground and sanctioned events and a bevy of challenges along the way. This is non-stop racing action that is wonderfully colorful and a lot of fun.

Namco Hometek and developer Eutechnyx will be releasing this title on the PS2, Xbox, GameCube and PC. The game will also feature online play, in addition to 2-4 player multiplayer modes.

If you are looking for enjoyable racing entertainment, then check out Street Racing Syndicate.