SRS is like a prostitute, looks nice, but spend 20 minutes with it, then it's back to the curb.
User Rating: 7.3 | Street Racing Syndicate PS2
I can just see the NFS Underground crew and the SRS crew battling away to get their games out first. Well, Underground came out way earlier, but SRS still wound up lacking some of the important things UG included. SRS is nice and pretty, bright lights all over the place, but the environment is not overly detailed, which is kind of a good thing, considering you're flying by it at speeds of up to 230 mph (in the GT-R) and you don't want a ton of detail slowing down the system. The cars on the other hand are poorly proportion. For some reason, they just couldn't get the shapes of the cars right, but you'll get over it soon. The visual upgrades (vinyls, lights, spoilers, body kits, etc.) are nice, but not as extensive as Underground. The NFS crew just added a lot more options. Also, the shiny recent rain look of the streets is a direct rip from the NFS series and I don't think it's all that great. The touring mode is nice though, you can actually drive your car to all the locations in the city, or you can instantly jump there. The cops are a nice addition as well, although they give up way to easy, and cop cars should never be able to keep up with a 900 hp Skyline. Also, cop cars top out at around 120, not 160 like in the game. And the city is a little too small, it stretches maybe a few miles in each direction. But it is nice having no loading times except for garages, showrooms, and things like that. As far as the story goes, its pretty weak. You pick up girlfriends, do challenges, but the story pretty much drops you right in the beginning and lets you do your own thing. But, on the same topic, some of the girl videos are sexy as hell ;P . The car selection isn't too bad. It's no Gran Turismo 3, but it isn't too bad. There anywhere from 1 to about 5 different kinds of cars you can choose from around 7 or 8 different makes. Most of them newer cars and only the Skyline and Supra being really high end. I wanted to see a Porsche or Ferrari or something, but I guess that's too much to ask. Only thing they really should've added that they didn't, was Honda. Seriously, Honda is by far the biggest name out there in the street racing world. I understand they're not the fastest, but they're the most driven by kids these days. As for the driving, lets just say its better than Underground, which is a huge plus, considering this is a driving game. I, personally, have gone about 120 in my car, and 175 on my motorcycle, so I know what it feels like to go fast. And this game does a faintly ok job of simulating speed, which is better than most games so far. If you're using the nitrous, it makes things blurrier, which greatly helps the simulation of speed. In fact, it mostly brings you up there with how it's supposed to be (short of course for the fear of death). One nice thing that they do is that you start to lose a bit of control of your car at higher speeds, especially when using nitrous and when applying breaks. You must recognize that these JP cars are strict on being light weight, and when you use the tires to make such powerful changes in acceleration, the car sometimes tends to do what it wants. So you'll see a lot of fish tailing, especially on the rear wheeled cars, which is very nice and realistic. I like the damage aspect in this game as and idea, but they didn't do a great job with it. It's nice that damage actually costs you money to replace. But I spent quite a bit of time trying to destroy my car, and it just wouldn't happen. Also, damage doesn't affect performance, it's all cosmetic. The money system in this game is very unrealistic: random people just throwing down $1000+ to a random person in a race when they haven't even inspected you car? Nuh-uh. Doesn't happen. Also, it's way too easy to acquire a ton of money off easier races and get a bunch of cars totally maxed out quickly. On the flip side, some of the races are so rediculously hard, that they don't even seem do-able. The game has a life of about 3-8 hours in my opinion. It is one of those games you might want to pick back up again and play for a little while later on, but you won't have huge urges. The game isn't bad for multiplayer, but there are better multiplayer racers out there. So, with all said and done, this game is a rental at best, but a worthy rental if you've rented most of the games you wanted to rent. If you're a teenager and you already played Underground and want some more of that action, I definitely recommend renting this game. But don't buy it, you'll get bored with it rather quickly. Thankyou and drive safe.
