Developer: Eutechnyx
Publisher: Namco
Platform: PC, Steam, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, GBA
Street Racing Syndicate – Review
Will a game released in 2004 keep it together in 2014? Well Eutechnyx and Namco must think so because Street Racing Syndicate finally made its way to Steam. Let’s find out if they were right or wrong.
Story
You are a driver who’s trying to make a name for himself. You start out as filling in for another driver who’s been arrested and can’t make it to the race. By winning that race, you earn your starting capital to buy your own car and start racing yourself. The more races and challenges you win, the more respect you earn and the more girls you get. Standing atop of the racing world with lots of beautiful cars and even more beautiful girls, isn’t that every man’s dream?
Graphics
The graphics of this game are very poor for this time and age. That’s because the original game was launched in 2004. Ten years later it is released on Steam but with no graphical update whatsoever. This was sad, as most games from the past are getting an HD release, they could have put some effort in their release on Steam. It would’ve been nice as a lot of games these days have stunning graphics.
Sound
The music in the game however is still very good. Meaning that if you like rap and rnb, you’ll like the music in the game. This is the kind of music that fits cars, racing and girls perfectly.
Also the sounds used for cars like a running engine, screeching tires and so on, is very realistic. If you close your eyes, it kind of feels you’re actually there yourself instead of just sitting in front of your screen.
Gameplay
There are 3 modes in this game. First there is the Street Mode, more precisely the story mode. Here you get the chance to prove yourself through a variety of races. Like described in the Story paragraph above, you start out by replacing another driver and earn yourself a bit of cash if you can win that race. Once you’ve won that race, you can go to the Car Showroom to buy yourself a car. If you have some money left, you can also buy some upgrades. The upgrades are very extensive, including engine tuning, suspension upgrades, installing nitrious systems, upgrading your turbo system and so on. Less important for your car performance, but certainly the most important for your eyes, you can also buy cosmetic upgrades. These include car painting and car stickers. If you don’t have any money left after buying your first car, you’ll have to start racing to earn yourself some extra. With this money you need to upgrade your car to be able to win the more difficult races. If your car is fully upgraded and it still isn’t enough, it’s time to start thinking about buying another car and start upgrading that one. There are 51 cars to collect in this game, so you’ll know what to do for a while.
Winning races also unlock respect challenges, here you arrive at a point in the city where a girl is waiting. She gives you a mission to complete, it can be a checkpoint race where you have to reach a number of checkpoints in a given timeframe, a mission to follow another car to a destination or earning enough respect by doing some tricks with your car. When you can succesfully complete one of these missions, the girl is yours. An extra motivation to complete these missions. When the girl is won over you also unlock a sexy dancing video of the girl. Each girls has of course multiple videos to unlock, each one a little more revealing than the previous one. There are a total of 18 girlfriends to unlock during the game.
By winning all the races and completing all the missions available in the game, you earn respect. The more respect you have the more races will unlock.
Second there is Arcade Mode, where you can just choose a car and start racing in one of the 4 availables options: Quick race, Checkpoint, Iron Man and Speed Trial.
And last but certainly not the very least, you have the multiplayer option. Here you can races again friends in splitscreen or in lan, or you can compete online against other players.
And for all this, you don’t have to know much about the controls, just use the arrow buttons to move your vehicle in all directions and the Control button to make use of your nitirous installation. This will give you a boost so no one can follow you anymore or to get back in the wheels of the other cars after you suffered a crash, giving you the opportunity to get back in the game.
Conclusion
Street Racing Syndicate is still a fun racing game, but has horrible graphics and a HD remake would’ve been better. But on the other hand, the racing is still a lot of fun and unlocking all your girlfriends gets you very addicted to the game. If it was released in HD I would’ve reccommended to buy it again, but now I just recommend it to the people who’ve missed this little racing gem 10 years ago.
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