Wild Wild Racing Preview

The PlayStation 2 needs all the help it can get in fleshing out its software lineup. To that end, Imagineer is using Wild Wild Racing to fill the "off-road buggy racing" niche that has so far been neglected. So far, though, no one has committed to publish the game in America; it's currently slated for Japanese release only. Hopefully some noble publisher will help Western gamers get their buggy fix too.

Wild Wild Racing will have everything you'd expect an off-road racer on the PlayStation 2 to have. It will include a variety of vehicles to drive, such as dune buggies and pickup trucks. The realistic physics model will be befitting of PlayStation 2's computational power, so expect Wild Wild Racing's cars to bounce and swerve like they would in the real world.

A slew of gameplay modes will help further differentiate Wild Wild Racing from other off-road games. Not only will the game include old standbys like championship, time attack, and single-race modes, but it will also feature more innovative fare like adventure mode (set out with a compass and map), downhill race mode, and uphill race mode. Surely, downhill race will be especially crazy, since there will often be nothing stopping your car from plummeting over the side of the track.

Wild Wild Racing is due out in Japan later this year, but as yet hasn't been picked up by a US publisher. Perhaps some adventurous company will swoop down upon it and deliver hard-core off-road action to American PlayStation 2 fans. Otherwise, those gamers will have to keep an eye on the import scene.