The Fast and the Furious First Look

February 24th, 2007, 02:34 Posted By: wraggster

via ign

Last year, Namco Bandai brought the racing frenzy of the Fast and the Furious movie franchise to the PlayStation 2. Based only in part on the third movie, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, the game put players in control of extremely fast rides on the mountainsides and freeways of Tokyo. This Spring, the racer will hit the PSP and bring with it all of the racing and customization options that strengthened the original release.

Not to be a stripped down port in any fashion, The Fast and the Furious on the PSP will contain all of the modes, vinyls, parts and more that we saw in the PlayStation 2 release. In addition to some new multiplayer modes that we'll talk about in a minute, the game will also feature two new options that relate to the single-player game. One small new thing is that you'll now be able to change your oil. Yes, it sounds somewhat mundane, but swapping out your oil for some cleaner stuff will allow your engine to run a little cleaner, or even rejuvenate an aging machine.

The second and significantly cooler feature is called the Swap Meet. By linking up with another player via Ad-Hoc, you'll be able to swap vinyls and even complete cars with one another. If one player happens to be adept at tossing stickers all over his ride and you like his particular style, you can grab his skins and slap them on your ride. Or, if your buddy happens to have a fully-pimped vehicle in his garage, he can give you a copy of that as well.

When you enter a Swap Meet, you'll be able to tag which cars and vinyls you want to show off to the other player, and vice-versa. If you see something you want, you can send a request to the other player. If he then deems you worthy enough to hop in his pimped-out Mustang or sport his dragon-emblazed vinyls, he can okay the transaction and you'll be off and running with your new digs. One very user-friendly aspect of this is that vinyls will adapt themselves to any ride you stick them on, so you don't need to match cars model-for-model in order to be able to trade them.

Keeping with the designers' goal of having only positive rewards for the player throughout the game, anything traded at a Swap Meet is simply a copy - that is, the original owner won't have to give up anything while another player is able to reap his hard work. On a similar note, this means that you won't be able to race for pink slips in any of the multiplayer modes as Eutechnyx didn't want to ever penalize the player in any significant way.

Speaking of multiplayer modes, the PSP version of The Fast and the Furious will contain a few new ways to compete with your friends and/or enemies. One that we were able to check it goes by the name of Road Sweeper. Similar to a standard drift battle in many ways, up to four players can simultaneously race along a mountainside while trying to score the most drift points. The catch here is instead of racking up an overall point total, racers are attempting to win individual corners, and the player with the most wins at the end of the race will drive home victorious. If you've played Graffiti in any of the Tony Hawk games you'll find it to be very similar to Road Sweeper in many ways.

The other new mode we had a look at was a Tag Run. Set up like a relay race, two teams of two racers each send one car down a raceway and back again, with the second racer on each team doing the same only after the first car has crossed the finish line. As you have to drive back towards the starting line, you're able to literally run head-on into an opposing racer and attempt to really slow them down. Up to four players can compete in this mode, but should only two or three players be available then the computer will choose the empty teammate slots and the solo player(s) will race as both cars.

The Fast and the Furious is set to hit the PSP sometime this Spring.

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