Story/ Concept

The concept for this game is just like any of the other racing game out at the moment. Win races, earn money. Tune up and customise your car and win even more races. Juiced though has more than a few novel ideas up its sleeve including betting, Pink slip races and Car gangs.

Game Modes

There are 5 different game modes:

  • Arcade - The normal jump into a race and put your foot down.

  • Career Mode - This is the backbone of the game, earn money and respect to gain control of your own crew.

  • Custom Race - Race to the settings of your choice.

  • Multiplay - This is the multiplayer game where you can race your friends from your living room.

  • Xbox Live - This is where you can race people from all over the world without leaving the comfort of your favourite chair.

Graphics

The Xbox version has the better graphics. This is due to its better graphics card but apart from a slight improvement there isn't actually a lot to compare between this and other consoles. The backgrounds seem a little flat and the overall graphics don't seem overly impressive but this is probably largely due to the fact that the next generation consoles are around the corner and the videos that are doing the rounds show off what games will look like on them.

Artificial Intelligence

The Artificial Intelligence has been toned down since the time when Acclaim had the game under its wing but that is not to say it's a pushover, the rival cars still put up a battle and jostle for pole position but they aren't as aggressive as they were. The A.I. comes into its own when you start unlocking your own team and can get them to race instead of you.

Multiplayer

The whole host of usual game modes that you can expect from a racing game are here including Pink Slip races where you both try to win your opponents car.

Xbox Live

The best thing about a racing game is playing your mates and beating them. The second best thing is playing strangers and beating them. Straight from the word go all the single player cars are unlocked and available to race, so you don't have to spend the first few days traipsing through the single player mode unlocking as much as you can so you don't have to race an old banger and get laughed at, because everyone else has got the best car in the game and you don't have a chance. With a car modding game, the worst thing you can do is take a bog standard car into a race. This is where the new Auto-Mod feature comes in, you can choose to soup up your car to the max or just choose standard upgrades for free. The sense of speed of the single player game is carried over to the Xbox live servers. The only let down is that you can only play five other people online at the same time; a few more would have been nice. There are all the usual game modes for an online game and a whole load of customization options so you can tailor the race to what you want including excluding certain car mods and changing the collision options. The best game mode of all to play online when you are good enough is the pink slip race where the winner takes the losers car. This is so fun when you play a work mate, win his pride and joy and then tell everyone at work about it the next day whilst he is standing right next to you. The feeling is indescribable.

Longevity

This game is hard, you have to win races to unlock more items and the items are car specific, you can't unlock all the best bits for one car then build another with the same parts. So taking the time to stick with one car and learn it inside out does pay off in the long run when you learn how much pressure to apply to the thumbstick for the corners. According to Juice games there are at least 7.6 trillion combinations for customizing your car.

Pros

Lots of cars available

Tons of Customisation options

Win money without racing by betting

Let your Computer controlled team race for you

Pink slip races (Winning)

Online play

THQ have completely revamped the game that was originally going to be released.

Cons

People on streets look like cardboard cut outs

Average Handling

Pink slip races (Losing)