But, the mountains are the home of drift races, and that's what we'd come to do. After deciding on the mid-engine, rear-wheel drive MR-S VM180 TRD we were first offered at the beginning of the game. The built-in turbo and balanced weight were perfect for a beginner, and we quickly took to racing. Fast/Furious' interface actually has a trio of different options depending on the car; digital, analog (the default) and cyber, which apparently comes from the future (or at the very least looks like it with a slick boot-up sequence) and is modeled off Pioneer's real-life AVG-VDP1. Picking a more advanced hud like cyber crowds the screen a little more, but gives a ton of info on where torque and momentum has shifted, and in drift battles gives crucial info about how close to losing control on a drift you are. Pushing it right to the limit and getting a car sideways and close enough to a barrier is one of the game's purest sources of risk vs. reward fun.

And you are rewarded quite nicely, with points doled out for not only throwing a car into a drift, but what kind and the duration. Careful attention was paid to rewarding the player for successfully getting a car to drift, not holding it through the turn. While this may seem like a slightly lopsided concept, rewarding even mistakes, it actually removes a barrier of entry -- particularly since the game regularly encourages you to try more advanced moves like feints and Manji drifts along straightaways. Our lust for controlled chaos sated, we started poking around the game's other little areas of fun, namely the customization.

Being a Namco game has its rewards. The 20-something years of gaming history mean a wealth of classic gaming icons can be tapped, and Eutechnyx actually went as far as including Soulcalibur III, Pac-Man and Dig Dug (among other) drift charms that hang off the back of a car. As was reiterated to us a couple of times, though, the vinyl customization level is just insane. layers allow an unprecedented level of control over what your car looks like, and pre-existing designs can be applied and then tweaked as need be. It even goes as far as to allow you to slap the sticker of any defeated racing crews on your car to get discounts at upgrade shops. Apparently nearly all the cars in the game were built with the same tools, and given their diversity, it's damned impressive.

In fact, the body modification part of the game is nearly a mini-game in and of itself. 500 different body mods, 100 licensed cars from nearly every major Japanese manufacturer, plus some American offshoots with their own body styles and of course Detroit muscle. Thousands of pieces of vinyl art to apply to nearly every part of your car (just scrolling through the menus with the shoulder buttons takes ages, something we're not entirely happy with). And what's more, stuff like adding a body kit actually widens the wheelbase, and a spoiler actually -- gasp -- stabilizes the car at high speed.

Even picking up your new ride has been given a little extra oomph. The glide-in sequence for the local Japanese dealerships may be the same, but if you need to import (read: buy Amurakin), you can visit the city's military base to check out the shipments. Here you can pick up an Acura Integra and its body style vs. the Japanese version, or invest in a HEMI-powered Charger (it even comes in orange for maximum General Lee-ness). It's a little touch, but it goes a long way.

The core of Fast/Furious' appeal is just the sheer amount of stuff you can do. Already the world is starting to feel a little on the smallish side (it won't take long to travel the length of the wangan), but that may just be our next-gen itch creeping up. The customization, time spent modeling vehicles and racers off their real-life counterparts (though the AI doesn't seem terribly diverse and doesn't develop grudges or anything, we were told), and the loving attention to giving the game the neon glow of Tokyo while maintaining the key gameplay that keeps it from being another shallow licensed racer has us very, very excited indeed.

Licensed racers are often relegated to the land of kart-based power-up-filled knock-offs and half-assed me-too efforts. The Fast and the Furious, on the other hand, lovingly coaxes authentic street racing culture from the Hollywood fluff and actually makes a game that we want to play through. It's still a licensed game, mind you (you can actually unlock and race some of the movie cars/riders), and a good one at that, but the best complement that we could pay to the game is that it doesn't feel like a licensed game.

Instead, it just feels... well, fun.