Juiced
Rising from the ashes of Acclaim's death, Juice Games' street races arrives just a bit too late to lay claim to anything new, but it may just have some rev left in it.
Published: July 11, 2005
That whole adage "timing is everything" is, sadly, true. Striking when the iron's hot can mean all the difference between a hit game and something that's destined for the bargain bin almost instantly. It's one of the main reasons why the Holiday shopping season sees so many releases -- more people are in stores and are likely to pick something up.
Originally, way back when Acclaim was trying to pull themselves out of the rut they'd fallen into half a decade or so ago (you mean it's not a good idea to buy a comic book publisher when we're not solidly in the black? But this is the dot-com boom, nothing can go wrong!), Juiced was going to be one of those Holiday releases. It also would have beaten EA's Need For Speed Underground follow-up, Midnight Club 3, and even Burnout 3 to store shelves, which certainly would have helped its chances in an already crowded market.
That's not to say Juiced doesn't have anything to offer. The very fact that you can basically lose your shirt (and prize car) in a matter of minutes, blowing hours of work on a level that hasn't been seen since Steel Battalion's savegame wipes, means it takes risks no other racing game is willing to. The betting system can make even mundane races (of which there are many) interesting and it features some of the best A.I. ever seen in a racing game. All this assumes, however, that you're not already tired of street racing games.
The glut of racing games released in the past couple years -- street racing in particular (thanks, The Fast and the Furious) -- means that games that don't have some major selling point will probably get lost in the shuffle. My girlfriend, my litmus test for how interesting a game is based purely on first impressions to the casual gamer, can't tell a single one of my street racing games apart as I'm reviewing them. That says something about the general style (though, I can probably tell in a second, sadly), but it also means racing games really need to be sold on gameplay if they want to stand apart word-of-mouth-wise.
This is where Juiced both shines and is hurt. It doesn't immediate look like anything different and even the first couple play throughs can seem mediocre at best, but once you start digging into the respect system, betting on races and working over the upgrades system to tweak your garage to the point where you're getting the most oomph out of the available parts while still staying within a particular class, the game really does begin to get interesting.
The bulk of your experience will come from either the Career Mode (more on that in a second) or Arcade Mode races that unlock cars and tracks that you can pick and choose from as you see fit in Custom Race Mode. The latter certainly isn't as deep or interesting as the former, but it'll let you get into the meat of the racing experience without having to build up your cash reserves and respect in each of the four types of events.
Circuit and point-to-point races either have you racing around a track a couple of times or through a long stretch of urban track, respectively, or in a simple drag race similar to Need for Speed Underground 2, but with more control over where and how you race beyond just hitting the shifts right and avoiding traffic. The Showoff events are a decent idea, but once you learn how to string the same couple of moves together and realize how small the moveset really is (even when factoring in the random bonus moves you can pull on certain parts of the track), the mode doesn't feel especially deep.
Gaining street cred and ducats is the core of the Career Mode, and it's doubtlessly where you'll spend most of your time in Juiced. Eschewing crappy attempts at a storyline or any real explanation of why you're racing (you just are, okay?), the game plops you into the thick of the street racing scene in fictitious Angel City without so much as a tutorial screen, which nearly turned me off to the game completely.
Given 30 grand to buy a new ride, you'll have to pick from three different cars and then build your empire from there using a basic calendar system to pick your race days. On days where an event isn't already scheduled, you can create your own event, and based on your respect, you can race all over the city as you see fit.
Eight different racing teams, each with particular interests like circuit racing performance, pink slip wins, car collections and so on will grade you after every race. Not all of them will take interest in what you did (a person who's solely focused on pinks isn't going to give a rat's ass about how well you drag race), but those that do will give you respect in various amounts.
This is key because as you build up respect with each group, you're allowed more and more privileges with them, starting with spectating races (where you can bet on the entrants, but not race yourself), then actually race, then race a member for pink slips, then finally host your own custom events on their turf. Before races, you can also bet against another driver, and if you bet high enough, you can impress them a bit with your offer, netting you even more respect before you finally lay down the cash.
Originally, way back when Acclaim was trying to pull themselves out of the rut they'd fallen into half a decade or so ago (you mean it's not a good idea to buy a comic book publisher when we're not solidly in the black? But this is the dot-com boom, nothing can go wrong!), Juiced was going to be one of those Holiday releases. It also would have beaten EA's Need For Speed Underground follow-up, Midnight Club 3, and even Burnout 3 to store shelves, which certainly would have helped its chances in an already crowded market.
That's not to say Juiced doesn't have anything to offer. The very fact that you can basically lose your shirt (and prize car) in a matter of minutes, blowing hours of work on a level that hasn't been seen since Steel Battalion's savegame wipes, means it takes risks no other racing game is willing to. The betting system can make even mundane races (of which there are many) interesting and it features some of the best A.I. ever seen in a racing game. All this assumes, however, that you're not already tired of street racing games.
The glut of racing games released in the past couple years -- street racing in particular (thanks, The Fast and the Furious) -- means that games that don't have some major selling point will probably get lost in the shuffle. My girlfriend, my litmus test for how interesting a game is based purely on first impressions to the casual gamer, can't tell a single one of my street racing games apart as I'm reviewing them. That says something about the general style (though, I can probably tell in a second, sadly), but it also means racing games really need to be sold on gameplay if they want to stand apart word-of-mouth-wise.
This is where Juiced both shines and is hurt. It doesn't immediate look like anything different and even the first couple play throughs can seem mediocre at best, but once you start digging into the respect system, betting on races and working over the upgrades system to tweak your garage to the point where you're getting the most oomph out of the available parts while still staying within a particular class, the game really does begin to get interesting.
The bulk of your experience will come from either the Career Mode (more on that in a second) or Arcade Mode races that unlock cars and tracks that you can pick and choose from as you see fit in Custom Race Mode. The latter certainly isn't as deep or interesting as the former, but it'll let you get into the meat of the racing experience without having to build up your cash reserves and respect in each of the four types of events.
Circuit and point-to-point races either have you racing around a track a couple of times or through a long stretch of urban track, respectively, or in a simple drag race similar to Need for Speed Underground 2, but with more control over where and how you race beyond just hitting the shifts right and avoiding traffic. The Showoff events are a decent idea, but once you learn how to string the same couple of moves together and realize how small the moveset really is (even when factoring in the random bonus moves you can pull on certain parts of the track), the mode doesn't feel especially deep.
Gaining street cred and ducats is the core of the Career Mode, and it's doubtlessly where you'll spend most of your time in Juiced. Eschewing crappy attempts at a storyline or any real explanation of why you're racing (you just are, okay?), the game plops you into the thick of the street racing scene in fictitious Angel City without so much as a tutorial screen, which nearly turned me off to the game completely.
Given 30 grand to buy a new ride, you'll have to pick from three different cars and then build your empire from there using a basic calendar system to pick your race days. On days where an event isn't already scheduled, you can create your own event, and based on your respect, you can race all over the city as you see fit.
Eight different racing teams, each with particular interests like circuit racing performance, pink slip wins, car collections and so on will grade you after every race. Not all of them will take interest in what you did (a person who's solely focused on pinks isn't going to give a rat's ass about how well you drag race), but those that do will give you respect in various amounts.
This is key because as you build up respect with each group, you're allowed more and more privileges with them, starting with spectating races (where you can bet on the entrants, but not race yourself), then actually race, then race a member for pink slips, then finally host your own custom events on their turf. Before races, you can also bet against another driver, and if you bet high enough, you can impress them a bit with your offer, netting you even more respect before you finally lay down the cash.
