SRS: Street Racing Syndicate

I admit it. I fell into the hype that this game built up weeks before it's initial release and I thought this game would be a real contender. Well, it isn't. It does have a few interesting quirks but overall, it's a mediocre, Need For Speed Underground-wannabe that lack overall polish and finesse.

The usual suspects for a street racing games are here: fast import cars, performance tuning, pimp graphics and parts, and modern urban pop/rap music but the primary attention-getter that gets the lion's share of the DVD bits are the models. Real models. The ones that have graced many of the import tuner mags you see on the magazine racks. This is where it gets tacky in a hurry. In winning certain series races and beating special challenges, you can "win" these models. And you can "hook up" up with them before you start to run more races. If you lose too many races, they dump you like a sack of old cat litter. Win some races and they will want to go back to your place to "give you a reward". And we ain't talking about baking cookies! Is this really appropriate for a video game that will be played by young kids? Even though the rating is for Teens, I can guarantee you that many, young, pre-teen males will probably spend more time watching all the model's videos than really enjoying the game. The videos are sexually suggestive to downright erotic and this type of titillating tripe has no business in a game like this. The amount of space these videos consumed could have easily been used to make a better, more appealing game.

OK, now for the game itself. It's got its good points but it mostly falls short in a number of areas. The selection of cars are reasonable - over 40 in all with Mitsubishi, Toyota, Volkswagen, Lexus, Subaru, Mazda, and Nissan as the manufacturers - but the only problem with the selection is that many of them are virtual duplicates as opposed to truly different cars. If Nissan wants to have 2 Skylines, fine, but so we need more than five? Most of the selections from Mazda are RX-7's. For the fan of these cars, it's great to choose from them, but since there are no differences in how they perform, it's moot and a waste of space.

Overall, the car graphics are about average. The detail is OK but it lacks any real definition. The streets and surrounding areas of Miami, Philadelphia, and L.A. are actually pretty good with no pop-ups. The streets are less "wet" than in NFSU but they do reflect the lights and neon of the streets pretty well

Sound wise, the cars don't always sound authentic but it's decent enough. As far as the music is concerned, it's your usual rap/hard pop fare but since I always take out the music in these kind of games, I can't say if it's good or not. All I know is that it's distracting.

Playability is good. The learning curve for controlling the car is easy which makes it nice to jump right in and drive. The feel of the different powertrain configurations (rear, front, all-wheel drive) is accurate and precise which is kind of surprising for a game that feels more arcade-like than an actual driving simulation.

The goal of SRS is to gain money, respect, and girls. In Street Mode, you can run in the Respect Challenges and earn respect points by completing certain task. The Crew Meets offer you a chance to participate in series races. You win money and respect for winning these series while the street challenge races let your opponent (and you) puts up a wad of cash that can be all yours if you can beat him (or all his if you lose). The only thing that can improve here is to have a greater variety of drivers and cars in these challenges since the same few people in the same few cars will challenge you over and over again. There's also the Roll Up Races where you flash your lights behind a challenger with a "Race Me" arrow above the car, very similar to the Tokyo Xtreme Racer series. There's also a Cruise Zone you can go into that lets you cruise the city (controlled by the AL) but you can control the camera so you can get some pretty nice angles of your ride.

The game also comes with a multiplayer feature, Split Screen, and online play as well as Quick Race, Checkpoint, Iron Man, and Speed Trial in the Arcade Mode.

I could go more into this game but I'll let it stand as is. It has such potential to be a much better game but it only comes across as a cheesy, assemblage of parts, experience that is made worse by the equally cheesy, assemblage of "parts", female models. OK, the game itself can be fun to play and it's involving to a point but it needs more than gyrating, overly exposed women with suggestive lyrics to make this game worthwhile. Rent if you must, but look for something better.

I got bored of this game after about 10 minutes. The level is lousy, the car control is lousy, and it's a total waste of time to even try to complete it. Online is boring as well.

The girls in the game is probably an attempt to cover the lousiness of this game. Even if you're just buying this game just for the girls, it does have hot pictures of them on the menu in skimpy clothes, but it's not really much. You can also earn videos of real models dancing, but it's not really that sexual if that's what you're expecting. It's just a girl in slightly skimpy clothes like at the nightclub. They don't dance in skimpy bikinis like at a gentlemen's club. Don't expect that kind of stuff. This game is rated Teen, not Mature or over.

Anyways, this game is lame and a waste of time to complete. If there were no models, this game would have nothing to show but it's lousy gameplay.

a lot of people will not like this game because of reality.

It is challenging to race the tuner,also to fix the body damage when you wreck.The girlfriends are a added bonus to fix up your car or cars quickly.There is more driving time on this game and does not have set tracks like NFS.The police chases are fun to get into make sure you escape or pay a fine.The graphics for the tuners are different,but nothing like NFS. Yes the bodykits are only simple but when you are a street racer(like myself)you do not want to pull attention from the police.In this game you set your own destiny(where you race,who you race and the cruise spots are a plus)

Overall this game ranks under NFS because of the accessories for the tuners are limited.But if you like (NFS Hot Pursuit) the police chases are fun.

If you want to play and see how the real underground racing happens then this is a game for you. But if you like fantasy cars and like an easy way to earn your cars then NFS andNFS2 are your games

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 16 reviews  3.1 out of 5 stars