Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights

Metachronos overall score = 6.7 / 10

Positive
- Online career mode is a neat addition
- Drift races aren't half bad
- Lots of neat visual mods to trick out your cars
- Plenty of licensed vehicles

Negative
- Controls are loose
- Artificial Intelligence rubber banding is ridiculous
- Middling production values

If you actually remember 2005's Juiced, you've got a better memory than most. THQ and developer Juice Games' unassuming arcade-style street racer didn't exactly set the world on fire. Instead, it offered up a mostly competent take on a well-worn genre that had some interesting, yet flawed, design concepts. Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights is the follow-up to that unmemorable game, and this sequel is equally forgettable. It offers up yet another arcade-heavy street racing experience with driving mechanics that do little to impress, an offline career mode that's laudable only because you don't experience the teeth-gnashing frustration you may have had with its predecessor, and presentation that's cut from the same swath that every generic street racer in the world uses. The one, saving grace is the Xbox 360 version's online play, which includes a whole career mode that you can play online against other armchair Paul Walkers. Sadly, PlayStation 2 owners are left on the side of the road with no online play at all.



Most of the racing takes place inside the game's career mode. Included in the career mode are a variety of race types. There are standard races, eliminator races, team races, standard solo drift events, and wheel-to-wheel drift events. There's also a decent roster of tracks in the game (the track designs are aesthetically different, though functionally similar between the 360 and PS2 versions of the game), though they're the same brand of closed-off tracks as in the first Juiced. There's no open-world racing here, no traffic to avoid. It's just tricked-out rides racing other tricked-out rides in somewhat sterile environments. Presentation is another area where the 360 version doesn't really impress. Obviously, it looks a bit better than the PS2 game, but not as much as you might expect. One thing the PS2 version actually does better is the sensation of speed. Cars just feel faster in the PS2 version. Still, the 360 game looks OK. Car models are sharp and detailed, though the tracks are decidedly less so. The 360 version also lets you customize your driver, though the character models are blocky and kind of ugly. The frame rate holds up in both versions of the game, save for a few races with more than six cars on the track. Audio is largely unremarkable, consisting of predictable effects; a cheesy female voice who guides you through all the tutorials and tells you about all the ho-hum exploits of your opponent drivers while purring in a pseudosexy voice; and a licensed soundtrack that has a few notable songs, but nothing spectacular. Regardless of which version of the game you're talking about, Juiced 2 is not a game that can really be recommended to anyone but the most vehement street racing junkies. Countless games have done what Juiced 2 does and done it better. While the 360 version's online career mode is a neat wrinkle to an otherwise flaccid game design, it isn't necessarily enough to carry the game all by its lonesome. At best, Juiced 2 is an OK rental, but it's not interesting enough to warrant a full-priced purchase.

is it me or are racing games become worse and worse?

most of them. burnout paradise is awesome

yeah it is

burnout pwns