L.A. Rush Updated Hands-On

From the city of Compton to the Staples Center at 140 miles per hour. Try doing that in the real Los Angeles. Actually, wait, don't. Or, if you do, at least have the common decency to leave us out of it, should you get busted. Anyway, it seems like the only safe place to attempt that sort of behavior will be in Midway's new open-city racing game, L.A. Rush.

In the game's story mode, you play as a local racing hero with a mansion full of fast, expensive cars. After disrespecting a local thug/businessman, you return home to find that all of your cars--save one stock-looking Nissan--has been stolen. The businessman, Lydell, is holding a racing tournament with a $2 million purse. But to get there, you'll need to reclaim your cars, win races to earn money, and trick out your fleet.

Car customization is accomplished by visiting the car-transforming posse at West Coast Customs, which is the same shop showcased on MTV's Pimp My Ride. The staff of WCC appears in the game, lending voices to their polygonal likenesses.

L.A. Rush gives you a large, fairly accurate version of Los Angeles to drive around, and all the game's races are created by dropping checkpoints into various spots in the city, much like you'd expect to see in Rockstar's Midnight Club series. In Rush, you'll encounter a healthy variety of event types, ranging from these basic checkpoint races to acquisition missions, which is where you'll take back the cars that were rightfully yours. Other missions have you busting up billboards and other property owned by Lydell to hit him where it hurts--his pocketbook. You'll also be able to get into lowrider hopping competitions, and there's a cruise mode that forces you to drive a minimum speed down a troublesome, traffic-filled track for as long as you possibly can.

The game is running pretty well these days. Both the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions look sharp and are showing a pretty smooth frame rate, though the Xbox version definitely has a cleaner, crisper look to it. There's a little pop-up here and there, but it's nothing out of the ordinary for games of this type. The game delivers a good sense of speed, too.

With its October release rapidly approaching, L.A. Rush looks like it's mostly finished at this point, save for the mad dash for the finish line, where all those final bugs get fixed and the final tuning is done to properly balance the game. We'll have more on L.A. Rush as its release date nears.