Juiced review

Late last year we expected Acclaim to deliver Juiced, an urban racer with a lot of promise. However the publisher went bump. Thankfully Juice games wasn't particularly affected by this sad turn of events and under the watchful eye of THQ reworked its urban racer to the form it currently occupies on the shelf of your local games emporium from today.

In the time since Juice has been reworked we've seen a variety of racers come and go, most notably Need for Speed: Underground 2 and Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition. And at the more serious end of the market we have Gran Turismo 4 and Forza Motorsport. Juiced aims to slot between these two markets, offering urban racing with a little more depth and reality in the physics realm, so how well has it succeeded.

Streets ahead

Fans of the NFS: Underground and Midnight Club fraternity may get something of a shock when starting Juiced. There's a great big city featured in the game sure, but there's actually no way of going exploring as in the two other big urban racing franchises. And that highlights one of the biggest problems with Juiced from the off, it feels a somewhat soulless affair.

The point about urban racing and what makes these kind of games often more fun than a drab circuit racer is that you're racing in busy traffic across a living breathing city. But not in Juiced. Events take place along cordoned-off streets with no traffic, making it feel more like a circuit racer. Many of the circuits are dull affairs over roads that seem too big for the cars, making them seem like toy cars in replays.

So instead of fast-paced races across a city, with traffic to contend with, we have relatively tame affairs around circuits that tend to keep to set areas rather than encompassing the whole cityscape. And that means right away the game lacks some excitement that goes with the genre. That sums up Juiced, it's clearly a promising game with some technical pizzazz, but it's not exciting. It's the Coldplay of games, if you will.

It's all about respect

Juiced offers a novel two-system of progression through the game. Different racing crews hold events and you're ability to attend them or host races on their turf is related to how much respect you've earned from them. Some crews are more impressed with how good your car looks, others by the quality of your circuit racing - and it's possible to lose respect for unsporting driving that results in damage to opponent cars.

Hand in hand with the respect system is that of money. While the respect system seems to work pretty well, the money system can lead to some maddening problems and an inability to progress without major effort. Early on progression is easy, there's plenty of cash and moving between level eight and seven events (based on your car's power) isn't too much trouble.

But a little further into the game some problems become all too apparent. Upgrades to keep your cars competitive start to cost a lot of money and the events don't always give you enough cash to proceed. This results in an over-reliance of betting against other drivers in the event and often betting big. Lose the bet and suddenly the bank is empty, leading to problems competing at this high level and scrambling around the racing calendar looking for lower-powered events to compete in.

Once played an event disappears from the calendar and this leads to tension in the gameplay. Yes in the real world once you've failed a race then that's it. But this is a game, it's supposed to be fun, we're not mean to be tearing our hair out because the game has taken all our money and left us feeling like we're playing a 1980s shoot-em-up where we've lost all our special weapons on the hardest level of the game.

The smarts

The AI in the game is pretty good. Computer controlled cars show awareness of the player, aggression without violence and the sense they are trying to win the race. These racers will also trash-talk over the radio to you, giving races a sense of character other games lack.

Meanwhile you will hire AI racers to join your crew. But this is a poorly implemented aspect of the game. Watching your AI racer drive a five lap race, with only basic control over their aggression is not too much fun. And these guys can be pretty dumb to start off with, with medium aggression leading them to drive a dull none-winning race, while full aggression makes them use the nitrous in a pointless manner and crash into the side of the track.

It's also possible to attend race events and watch the action unfold while betting on the outcome. Again this is just another way of losing money, resulting in feeling lost in a game that's getting harder by the event yet not helping the player enjoy the experience.

Einstein-a-go-go

So we come to the matter of physics and car handling and Juiced has tried to sit between the two schools. Clearly the handling isn't as arcade-like as some of its urban racing brethren, but there's not as much depth in the handling model as games such as Gran Turismo 4. It's a fine line to walk and it's possible to alienate fans of both genres rather than pulling in players from both.

In the end, after some early promise, I didn't really like the way the cars handled in Juiced. To me the physics felt like your average arcade racer but with lots of extra grip in the tires. Yes tuning does make a difference, and you'll want to set up the car differently for circuit racing compared to the show-off events (where you perform skids and slides to earn respect and money). But the upgrades system is not the best either.

Tuning options seem to be placed in among options for buying parts, which is not too intuitive. You're left wondering how to alter one aspect of the handling and will have to look for it within options for buying more parts. Although there are many parts to buy, the options for tuning are few. I like the ability to lower and raise the horsepower to move the car between difference classes, but that's about all I like about the car customisation section - tuning/buying parts and changing the appearance of your cars is better in NFS: Underground 2 and Forza Motorsport.

The visuals

Technically Juiced tries very hard. The frame rate always remains smooth and the graphics are sharp and detailed. There's plenty to look at in the different areas of the city, which means you're left wondering why you can't go for a drive around the place instead of these endless dull circuit races.

Car models are good, though they don't always seem to look like they are really on the roads, especially during the day. Daylight racing is one thing that Juiced has over its rivals, a welcome respite from endless dark racing - where poor design can be hidden by shadows and darkness. The rain effects are very good, with reflective pools of water lying on the road.

The damage modelling is attractive, but doesn't really cut the mustard compared to some rivals. There's never really a sense that you can total a car when heading into a corner at high speed. Barrier riding is still an option for a last corner to beat an opponent, because the handling won't be too badly affected and the cost of repair low compared to winnings.

Freshly squeezed

Juiced is full of good intentions and different ways to play. Yes there's a competent Xbox Live mode where you can even race for ownership of cars, yes there's an arcade mode. But one is left with a feeling of a game that tries very hard to try new things, but gets some of the basics very wrong.

The progression system is punishing, leading to frustration once a few hours into the game. And the lack of interesting locations - partly due to the division of the city, the closed racing with no traffic and the lack of the ability to free-roam leaving it lacking character. For all the interaction with AI racers, contacting them via an in-game mobile phone etc., Juiced can feel a very empty experience.

It's clear there's potential here and a sequel will most likely fix these issues. But daylight racing is not enough to mark this game out from a crowd of games that while steadfastly sitting comfortably in their niches and not taking risks, ultimately are a lot more fun to play.