August 27, 2004 - The popularity of nitrous-fueled street racing has exploded in recent years. For awhile, the only way import racing fans could get their fix was at unofficial "tracks" dotting the urban landscape. These midnight races presented a world of opportunity for fledgling racers: respect, riches and the flighty affections of high-maintenance women. Alas, the high-stakes lifestyle of the Fast and the Furious crowd isn't for everyone, and so Namco decided to release Street Racing Syndicate. With SRS, Namco set out to incorporate the nuances of real street racing. Instead of choosing the arcade route taken by the Need for Speed Underground series, Namco decided to pursue a racing experience grounded in reality.

Did it work? Did Namco deliver a title brimming with the nuts-and-bolts of real street racing while retaining the flashy sense of escapism that made the phenomenon what it is today? Unfortunately, SRS succeeds in all the wrong places. It's fun spending hours fine-tuning your car (and most race-freaks probably will,) but most of the enjoyment never takes to the streets; it stays in the garage. The fact is made even more frustrating because SRS boasts some truly nifty features like an open-ended city and the chance to challenge random drivers. You can even collect hot women and trade them like baseball cards for Pete's sake. Now that's a feature missing from most games anyway, but to have it included in a mediocre game…for shame! SRS boasts increased realism through enhanced car mechanics and customization, but the cost of such practicality is too high.

For starters, the game feels slow. Even at its fastest, when you're tearing through Miami at 200+ mph, SRS fails to conjure the sense of speed required in a street-racing title. While the game feels quite speedy during initial races, the effect can only be chalked up to a players lack of experience negotiating slick roads and sharp turns. Once accustomed, throttling through bends and narrow streets just doesn't feel exhilarating. Driving 150mph feels like driving 80mph. It may be more accurate, but when you're sacrificing the kind of excitement present in less-realistic titles like Burn Out 3, you'll swear realism sucks. Plus, the cars feel stiff, cutting down on the all-important fun-factor even more. Of course, purchasing new cars and modifying them helps alleviate a part of the problem. It's an iffy situation penalizing a game for being authentic, but the bottom line is that realism doesn't always translate well in videogames.



Take the Fast and the Furious flicks for example--they're not grounded in reality, which is why they're fun to watch (at least I think so, anyway.) If they had really showed what goes on in street races, things would moved that much slower. And injecting nitrous oxide in your system would not, I repeat not, send your car into warp speed as it does in 2 Fast, 2 Furious. But hey, it looked snazzy and made the movie suck less. SRS could have used a dash of artistic license like in Hollywood's portrayal of street-racing culture. It may not be realistic, and you'd be sacrificing one of the game's major selling points, but you'd also be adding another, greater one. When all is said and done, it's what happens on the street (digital or otherwise) that matters.

To its credit, Namco has done a great job of incorporating cars, parts and visual customizations from real-world manufacturers. SRS offers around 50 authentically modeled, officially licensed cars from manufacturers such as Nissan, Mitsubishi and Mazda. Each car looks and handles just as it should, making the acquisition of hot rides imperative if you want to survive on the streets. Provided you have the funds, you'll be ripping through traffic in the Mazda RX-7 and RX-8; the Toyota Supra MR2 Spyder, Celica, Corolla (AE86); the Subaru WRX, WRX STi; the Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34), 350Z; the Lexus IS 300 and the Mitsubishi Evo VIII. Purchasing a car takes an easy drive down to the showroom, where you can cycle through available models and make your selection depending on a vehicle's top speed, horsepower, torque, brake power and price. You can even pop the hood of each car to inspect an authentically modeled engine.