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It tastes good and is full of vitamins
Publisher: THQ
Fri, 19 August 2005
by: Australian Ninja
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If you're Fast and Furious then this game is for you baby! Street racing is the game, it's illegal and it's exciting. When you take off down the track in your fully sick modified car with a custom fluro paint job and flaming nitro exhaust, well the Legion of Doom put it best: "Whhaaaatttaa RUSH!"
Juiced features an arcade mode and a career mode along with test drive / time trial mode.
Arcade mode contains various challenges to beat. Win the different races to unlock the next challenge. Complete the challenge series and move on to the next series with different vehicles that gradually get faster and more powerful. Career mode involves first buying a car(s) modifying it, racing it and losing lots. Until you figure out how to exploit the game and then you'll be buying cars like there's no tomorrow, adding phat wheels, funky colours and 'tooling' around with the engine.
Career mode is the core of the game and likely where you'll spend most of your game time. Here you can challenge other racers and gain or lose respect. Gaining enough respect is essential to progress through the game. Gaining respect with each different racer (shown like a bar graph after races) will enable you to take on various challenges, host your own events, compete in special events, gain crew members and race for pink slips. The career mode goes on forever, to enter certain events though you'll need the correct car, be in the right class and have enough respect to enter. The races consist of: drag races, circuit races and point-to-point races. In addition there is a show-off event where you drive solo and perform tricks, which are listed in a separate tutorial menu with video demonstrations.
 | | Not exactly the most subtle paint job is it? |
It takes considerable effort to get into the career mode and a good degree of bungling, which means stuffing up your save game, slapping your head with a "D'oh!" then starting over. Why? Because it's real easy to lose all your money and respect at the beginning of the game. Long story short, repeatedly entering the show-off event will slowly unlock car mods, necessary to win at the races. Mod the car, go to drag races for easy wins and big money then buy some more cars and max out your current car. The smart player will find that pink slips are a fast and easy way to get cash fast. Pink slips mean betting one car against another, lose and you forfeit your car. To reduce the risk of losing, remove the memory card after accepting a pink slip race (Juiced auto saves almost every nanosecond) and ONLY accept a pink slip drag race with a maxed out car. If you win, save. If not, hit reset. Cumbersome but it works like a charm.
The races: Circuit racing has plenty of tight corners that need mastering to win. Sprints / Drags are a matter of having Nitro and working the gears and nitro (button timing) to win. Point to point are generally easier races, as they are one lap only, get in front and stay there. The show off events are easy providing you have a fancy blinged out car and learn the easy to perform tricks. They are shown in another menu and are simple to do once you've come to grips with the controls. The only difficult part is paying attention to what kind of car you are driving. Back wheel, front wheel or all wheel drive? Some tricks require back, some require front. Complete the bonus moves in addition to your own tricks during the run for a big score and big respect. That covers the types of races. Any race during the game will be one of these, regardless of what class your car is in. The same goes for the crew drivers. As you gain respect strangers will call you on your mobile phone to join your crew. Choose them to drive and watch the game play itself. At first they are total morons but gradually they build up RPG like from many races. If you want to enter the "crew-challenge" races building their skills is necessary. In those races you and your crewmate drive one car each from your collection in the same race. However it's possible to just skip over these events (or any event for that matter) if you don't want to watch the game play itself again and again.
It's actually possible in 2-3 days to get some ludicrous amounts of money and buy any car from the fully unlocked car collection. The formula is: Maxed out car (top of your current class) + drag races + big bets = easy money. Add to this pink slip races where you remove the memory card. Sell those cars for major dollars. Then buy high class cars and race those drags again with high bets (e.g. $40,000). Doing this will result in having more money than any racing fool really needs for pimping out their ride and collecting any car they like. Or competing in any class you like with the appropriate car by winning the prototype mods.
The betting in Juiced is an interesting game feature. At first it's infuriating as you lose money easily. Later in the game it's great as you win more races against the rival drivers who all have small cut-scenes. Well really just a little ugly polygon head with poor textures that talks to you. They tend to say the same things over and over and over again. The exact same things every time you win a bet, lose a bet, forget the bet, or just don't care about the bet. Fortunately the characters are more funny than annoying. I was in stitches several times just listening to poor Biggy Mombessa after he lost yet another bet to me. Something puzzled me about these oddballs I bet against. Just how exactly do the collection of weirdos (a Frenchwoman in a beret who leads "The Wild-Cats"? sure..) in this game afford to do nothing but race every day losing thousands of dollars and sometimes priceless cars with silly bets? I'm betting that they (a) have rich parents (b) have rich mafia support (c) have rich mafia parents.
Biggy Mombessa was my favourite character in Juiced. He talks with a deep throaty voice that comes across as soft and gentle, rather then tough. He tends to do foolish things like take on big bets with my driver [Masta Z and the FunkStar Delux crew] and lose over and over again. And he uses the word 'respect' a lot. Plus he has wonderful tough guy dialogue like "I can't remember the last time I won a bet, still it's the trying that counts". He also seems to have some kind of skin disorder and wriggles his head as he talks. Leave him on screen long enough and he'll start coughing, yawning and groaning and it's hard not to laugh at him.
 | | Punch it, Chewy! |
The licensed music in Juiced offers an excellent selection of thumping beats well suited to the games theme of illegal street racing. Hip-hop, gangsta rap, R&B, some techno/club and of course rock. An excellent selection of music overall. While nothing spectacular, the beats are loud, bassy and in your face. Like those goons you see driving cars outside nightclubs on Friday and Saturday nights with stereo systems more powerful and expensive than their cars. You know, those people that drive up and down the same strip with the windows rattling. The first time I played Juiced I had the stereo pretty loud with bass boost on, the room started to vibrate with one particular music track. Which clearly demonstrated how the music matches the gameplay perfectly. If you are playing Juiced with TV sound only, it really loses its effect. It's like a whole different game while playing with a good stereo hooked up to your console. In fact, you should minus one point from my review score if you're playing this without a stereo.
The sound effects of the vehicles are satisfying and varied. Drive a modern import car and it will sound and handle smoothly. Drive a Ford Mustang (or Drift-mobile) and be prepared for some out of control tire squealing goodness. The Ford Mustang was my favourite car to drive in Juiced. While not great for winning races, it's just bloody good fun to drive. Take this bad boy to the speedway for a show-off event and go nuts. Pull some donuts and the smoke can be seen from a mile away. On the open straight this beast roars to life like a force of nature. Doing a 360 produces some fantastic tire squealing, glorious smoke clouds and loud aggressive engine revving. Like I said, not much use in the serious races but for tooling around in it's hell good. For an arcade style racer the car sound effects are impressive indeed. Too bad my other favourite car the Maibatsu Thunder didn't make it into the game.
One thing that came across to me about Juiced is that I felt like it was the poor man's Need For Speed Underground and in this case I'm the poor man. While the game is satisfying to play and at times I played all day long as it was so fun, it lacks something. A little something. Hard to pinpoint but it's that 'something that after being enthralled for a good week or so of play you'll want more. More races types, less moronic crew drivers, more race tracks etc etc. With a bit more work a sequel could be a serious playa in the world of Illegal Street racing video-games that are so popular these days. Juiced is worthwhile if you love car-racing games, for casual fans its not too friendly. I had some serious fun with this game and the good outweighs the bad by far, I recommend it highly.
by: Australian Ninja
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