Juiced

Written by Troy Matsumiya  on April 12, 2005

First Impressions: The Juice is loose!

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You can call Juiced the Game That Wouldn't Die. It was formerly the crown jewel in Acclaim's otherwise terminally ill product line, but nearly flat-lined when the storied publisher went belly up last year. Hope for a reprieve was brutally brief when Take Two showed interest, but ultimately backed out. But luckily, a savior in the form of THQ rescued Juiced from a painful death into obscurity, much to the relief of street racing fans Ц and no doubt the employees of UK-based developer Juice Games.

And from the looks of it so far, Acclaim's and Take Two's loss will be THQ's big gain. Despite the many high quality street racers on the market like Need For Speed: Underground and Midnight Club: DUB, the appropriately named Juiced is looking very sweet indeed, and includes some interesting features that will make it stand out from the crowd and command respect.

In fact, respect is the heart of Juiced. Like other street racers, you will race to earn cash to buy cars, upgrade parts, cosmetic and performance modifications, and so on. What's different about Juiced is that you must also earn Respect, which is the only way to advance through Career Mode and unlock new courses, races and challenges; in fact, your goal is to become the most respected racer in the city. Aretha Franklin would be proud.

There will be four levels of Respect: Attend, where you can watch and bet on races but can't drive in them (however, it is a good way to earn cash if you make smart bets); Race, where you can now race and wager on your performance; Pink Slip, a high-stakes nail-biting mode where if you lose the race, you really lose (more on this in a moment); and the top level Host, where you can set up your own races and rules on your beaten opponent's track, and invite the crews you want to compete against.

You earn Respect based not only on winning, but also on how you race. If you drive recklessly and damage your car or worse, your opponents' cars, you will lose Respect. Yes, you have to treat your opponents with respect too, because they are the ones who will invite you to race on their tracks; bang up their cars and they may be reluctant to race against you in the future. It's a neat idea that should encourage good, smooth driving, so I guess I can kiss my standard strategy of ramming the crap out of my opponents goodbye. Drat! Besides, the game will feature realistic damage models that will not only display real-time cosmetic damage like scratches, dents and missing body parts, but also affect the car's performance if you bang it up badly enough. Careless driving will not only cost you Respect and performance, but also money as well; at the end of each race, you will have to pay for repairs before you can enter another event.

Unlike other racers with nameless and faceless opponents, Juiced uses the unique УcrewФ system where you race against crews and build up your own crew. The game takes place in the fictional Angel City, which is divided into several districts each run by a different crew. As you earn Respect, crews will invite you to race, which will open up new areas of the city and hence new courses. Earn enough Respect and other crews will want to join you, which is important for the team-based races. Yes, you and your crew can race as a team and you will even be able to give them real-time commands to help you win; for example, you can tell your crew to slow down and block the opposing team, allowing you to pull ahead.

There are over 100 tracks in the city with four main racing modes: point-to-point, circuit, sprint (similar to NFS: Underground's drag races where you have to perform perfect gear shifts to win), and the cocky Showoff mode. Similar to Project Gotham Racing's kudos style system, Showoff mode will give you points for performing stunts and tricks like doughnuts, 180's, 360's, power slides, J-turns and so on. String together several tricks in a combo and you will earn big multipliers.

But if you really want to earn Respect, you will have to compete in the high-pressure world of Pink Slip races and put your lovingly customized car on the line. If you win, you win your opponent's car. Sounds great, right? However, if you lose, you lose your car. That's right, it's completely toasted. Gonzo. Deleted off the hard drive. Ouch!

In Juiced, you will spend a lot of time customizing your ride, so you definitely do not want to lose Pink Slip races. In fact, having a sweet customized car will not only help improve your car's performance, but also increase your Respect. There will be 53 licensed cars in the game and the developer claims there are 7.2 trillion possible variations of color, modifications and tuning, which pretty much ensures that no two cars will ever be alike. Naturally, the best cars will be unavailable at the start and since you will have very little cash to begin with, you may not even be able to afford a new car. Instead, you may have to buy a used car or even a damaged car which you will have to pay to repair before you can race it. Cars will range from the ubiquitous imports to all-wheel drive and even classic American muscle cars.

Once you have your car, the customization fun can begin. There are three categories of custom modifications you can buy: Performance, Aerodynamic, and Paint. All mods are from real after-market manufacturers Ц and not surprisingly, you will have to unlock the best ones. Performance mods include things like turbo-chargers, air intakes, exhaust, nitrous-oxide tanks, performance chips, brakes, tires, and the much desired prototype mods. You can even change the height of your suspension by using a slider rather than choosing from fixed increments.

You can also use a slider to adjust your horsepower up or down. The natural inclination might be to slam it all the way to maximum, but you will have to be careful because the cars are broken into classes based on their horsepower. So by cranking up your horsepower, you may inadvertently move your car into a higher class and have to compete with much more powerful cars; by tuning it back a bit, you may instead drop down a threshold and be the most powerful car in that lower class, giving you a decided advantage over your opponents.

Aerodynamic mods help reduce drag and include spoilers, side skirts and rims, as well as cosmetic mods like light kits, decals, tinted windows and stereos (having a killer stereo system helps boost your Respect). You can even change the color of the gauges on your onscreen HUD. You can also remove sponsor decals from your car if you don't want your opponents to know what mods you installed under the sheet metal.

Unlike many racers, you will be able to choose your paint color from an infinitely variable color palette rather than from an inflexible, pre-determined selection. The color you choose will have a code which you can give to your crew, so your entire team can race under the same color. If you have enough money, you can add metallic and pearlescent clear coats, which shows impressively realistic color saturation and refraction depending on the amount and angle of lighting. You can even adjust the amount of focus and bleed-through of color through the clear coat.

Once you finish your customization, you can run the car on a dyno which will spit out the results of your changes and save a baseline so you can compare it against any subsequent changes. And as in real life, you will have to put your car through Maintenance to replace your worn out tires and brakes, and to refill your nitrous tank. Maintenance naturally costs money, so you will have to be careful not to blow your wad on a cool paint job only to find that you don't have enough left over to swap out your bald tires.

If you feel a bit overwhelmed at all of the customization choices, you can select Automod and have the game mod the car for you. You also don't have to worry about Pink Slip races or earning Respect if you don't want to; just select Arcade mode, which is straightforward, wheels to the pavement racing Ц and as an added bonus, you will still be able to unlock cars and courses.

Of course, the real fun in any racing game is in competing against other people. Juiced will support split-screen and up to six players on System Link and Xbox Live. You will be able to take your customized car online for all to envy and, if you're brave enough, enter it in Pink Slip races. You can also compete in team-based crew races where you and an opponent race against each other and control up to two AI teammates.

Graphically, Juiced is gorgeous. The cars are very detailed and look quite impressive, especially with the metallic and pearlescent clear coat paint jobs. The draw distances are also amazing, especially when you consider that the entire city is rendered all the time, not just the background objects that are closest to the track. Objects that you see in the distance (like a bridge, for example) are things that you will eventually be able to access and even drive on. The framerate is running at a solid 30 FPS with support for widescreen and 720 progressive scan. Naturally, the cars all sound authentic and will no doubt give many Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound systems a good workout.