awsome game

User Rating: 9.3 | 187 Ride or Die PS2
By gamestars | Review Date:
The latest entry in the growing genre of thugsploitation games is Ubisoft's 187 Ride or Die, a title that attempts to promote an incredibly simple premise with a parade of four letter words and urban violence. Aside from the presentation, 187 is a generic racing combat game that falls far below the standards set by previous games in this genre. It's impossible to discuss 187 without mentioning the incessant use of profanity and slang. This stylistic choice may have become increasingly popular due to the incredible sales of the Grand Theft Auto series. However where Rockstar's games attempt to capture an entire zeitgeist, 187 is a simple arcade game with a paper thin story line. It stars a young man named Buck who is commissioned by the local gang leader to take down members of a rival crew. The presentation seems more like a marketing ploy than a depiction of life on the mean streets of wherever. Not only does the constant swearing and use of slang become annoying, it feels as though the text was sloppily pasted together from a spreadsheet of popular terms. Here's an excerpt from the text that appears after Buck wins a deathmatch challenge: "Buck, you did you G dizzle, Gang--sta! Now peep this gangsta, you can hit the switches and blaze up the next hood you want, Ya heard. Keep the heater burnin' Baby." One can almost see the designers checking off a list of requirements: "Good, we used the term gangster twice in this paragraph, but let's try to add few more swear words." Rough Rider
The basic and most commonly occurring challenge is a race that circles some rather small urban tracks. The turns are mostly at right angles making powersliding a necessary skill. Cars also have a boost meter that fills up by performing skids and super skids. Attaining a full boost meter enables a super burst of speed that puts players in first-person mode and completely blurs the edges of the screen. As for the general feeling of speed in this game, the sports cars travel at a decent clip, but the SUVs are downright slow. This combined with loose steering makes for generally unresponsive controls and driving that is functional without being fun. The roads are littered with weapons, health, speed boosts and are filled with civilian traffic that constantly gets in the way. There are two control schemes in 187. One setup allows player to have full 360 degree control over their shooting with the right analog stick and with the other player simply hits one face button to shoot forward and another to shoot behind. The second scheme has an automatic lock-on system that makes smoking the competition incredibly easy. Outside of mines and Molotov cocktails, the weapon variation is hardly noticeable. There may be a slight difference in the rate of fire of an Uzi when compared to the AK 47, but weapons run out of ammo quickly and are readily available on all of the courses. Players can continuously shoot at anything that moves without worrying about conserving ammo or switching guns. The only weapon players should look out for is the rocket launcher which lights up vehicles with one fiery explosion.

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