PSPs, PS2s getting Fast, Furious

The street-racing genre still has some gas left in the tank. Namco Bandai Games is putting a new competitor on the tracks with The Fast and the Furious for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. The game will be "set in a world related to, yet separate from," the upcoming Universal Pictures' feature film The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, and it is scheduled to be released this summer.

The Fast and the Furious focuses on the underground scene of drift racing in Japan. Gamers will take to city streets in hundreds of licensed cars that can be tricked out with more than 500 body kits from authentic manufacturers. The game also features boss races, as well as an "advanced rubber band" artificial-intelligence system. Multiplayer modes include two-player split-screen and up to four players online.

The game is being developed by British developer Eutechnyx. The company has spent plenty of time behind the wheel, with racing games Street Racing Syndicate, Ford vs. Chevy, and Big Mutha Truckers.

With the first two Fast and the Furious films grossing over $270 million domestically, one would think a game based on the license would have been made years ago. In fact, VU Games had a Fast and the Furious game in the works but cancelled it during development.

Vin Diesel, star of the series' first film, is working on a racing project based on a movie, but it isn't The Fast and the Furious-related. Diesel is working with Midway Games on The Wheelman, scheduled for release sometime in 2007.