Juiced: Eliminator
The ex-Acclaim street racer goes portable. But will you want to take it with you?
Published: July 24, 2006
It's not even that bad of a racer. Perhaps a little on the basic side, sure, but the framerate is fairly smooth if not a little on the stuttered side, though it handles multiple cars on screen better than the console version, though it doesn't have nearly as far to fall framerate-wise. Juice Games even included the neat little effect of raindrops hitting the screen and then slowly peeling away at increased speeds. The car models are all well done, with some nice reflections when you're in the garage and a fantastic number of customizable parts, just like the game's big brother.
There is an issue with the sense of speed, though. Even some of the later cars don't really give you more of a rush, they just sort of put you at the next corner a little faster without the feeling that you're really hauling ass to it. Perhaps it's the framerate or the fact that the screen jitter isn't quite as pronounced as I remember it on the console version, but whatever the reason, there is a feeling that the cars aren't really speeding along properly. Having quite a few tracks that don't feel nearly as diverse as the big brother version of the game doesn’t help either.
The audio is even more spotty. Once again, the car sound effects are fantastic, and you really need to wear a pair of headphones to properly appreciate how throaty and rich some of them can be. Granted, things are relegated almost universally to the import cars (though there are some really nice high-end rides and a few American muscle machines), but that doesn't mean they sound bad.
The music, on the other hand, does . Just 15 tracks are available, and while I can appreciate the idea of having themed offerings, I really didn't need to sit through a circa 2000 Limp Bizkit track. The rest of the soundtrack is peppered with a handful of songs that seem thrown in just to include something "this kids are listening to these days;" Hoobastank, Fall Out Boy and so on. You can flick them off individually, but the soundtrack isn't big enough to support those holes and becomes incredibly repetitive. At least when you turn them all off, you'll still have all them yummy engine noises to listen to.
On the multiplayer front, things are fairly diverse, with 5-player Ad Hoc races and even a 1-on-1 game sharing mode. Allowing you to basically set up a race with buddies in the same way you can in Free Mode means you can essentially mirror anything in the single-player mode against friends, but it's sadly all local. If there had been infrastructure play, it would have been a serious multiplayer offering for the PSP library.
But therein lies the problem: the PSP already has a great library of single-player racers (quite possibly the best on any console -- or at least will be once GT Mobile hits). There's not a lot of room for an arcade-style racer that doesn't really nail the experience on the PSP. That doesn't mean it can't bring something new to the formula, though. Juiced's betting system and progressive upgrades mean there's an expansive single-player mode that can keep you busy for weeks.
Can is the operative word here. You'll have to fight through lousy controls that are neather tight nor loose enough with the control options (though this is hardly all Juice Games' fault; the PSPs analog nub has been troublesome for many developers), graphics that are passable, but lack the variety of the year-old console version, and track designs that can seem recycled just a bit too much.
In the end, Juiced: Eliminator suffers the same fate as other decent racers on the PSP: it's not bad, but with so many great racers already out, there's not much reason to invest much time in something that's just decent.
