187 Ride or Die : Games : Web Wombat

The graphics in 187 are pretty swish
when you stop to smell the roses, but
the game moves so rapidly you rarely
get to appreciate the attention to detail

Since the dawn of time when the universe was but a small acorn filled with energy and information, game developers have searched for the platinum racing game. Some thought the blueprint for the ultimate racer would come in their dreams. Sadly no.

Others tried releasing pressure in their skulls by drilling into their temples with power tools to release what could be the germination of the best race game.

Unfortunately they removed themselves from the gene-pool, sad as it may seem.

Looking back, history has shown that some development teams aimed for fabulous realism, seen in such games as Gran Turismo and Forza, while other teams tried for arcade thrills - the graphically manic Burnout series is a prime example - and others use sex to sell their games - the slop that is Street Racing Syndicate springs to mind.

The latest racing game by Ubisoft, developed in house, takes a completely different tack in the search for the ultimate racing game - guns.

Sure, you can race around a track all day long and have plenty of fun, reveling in the sublime physics, but when you unload round after round of semi-automatic weapons fire into your rival's chassis, eventually sending the car five feet into the air as it's underbody fuel tank erupts in a ball of fire and charred metal, it makes things just a little more intense.

And if done well, this kind of trigger-happy racing could one day become a memorable game worthy of cult - nay - occult status.

187 Ride or Die doesn't reach the vertex it could have, but this doesn't mean you should avoid it like a freshly laid doggy turd that's been happily solidifying under the sun's ultra-violet beams of deadly radiation. No, this game has promise, but first, allow me to set the scene of the story mode:

You are Buck, a criminal chap with brilliant driving skills who lives on the tough streets Los Angeles, where 187 gangland shootings are as common as paparazzi flocking to a freshly disrobed teen starlet after a night on the piss.

Your boss, O.G Dupree, has been shot 9 times by his Mexican adversary, Cortez, and decided that you - and you alone - must rid the entire city of the Cortez gang, or he'll kill you himself.

Wow, talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place. But if I was Buck, I'd snap off a chair leg and crush his sku… What's that? No more violent anecdotes? Oh crap… Come again? No more swearing either!?! Shit on me… [Ed - you're on probation wise-guy.]

The game kicks off with you looking at a map of LA, and from here you must choose a race type at various locations (whip race, deathmatch, minefield). Proceedings are fairly cut-and-dry: keep on winning races/terminating opponents and you'll keep on unlocking more races/cars/gunners.

Before you enter an event, you must choose a car and a homeboy, the latter being your gunner who can be instructed to shoot forwards or backwards, and will auto-target the closest opponent. You'll be notified when your gunner hits an enemy, which in turn slows them down slightly and decreases their armour, to eventually result in their fundamental demise. Of course, they - and you - respawn moments later (except for deathmatch games, where the exploded stay dead).

As the race commences, you'll find that the game plays well enough, with half-decent physics making the cars feel nice and heavy, coupled with overriding arcade elements, such as the boost gage, which is filled by drifting arcadishly round corners.

Note the rear end of the red car squatting under
acceleration, and being peppered with gun fire

Your boost can also be filled by collecting nitro power-ups, and there are other power-ups too, including new weapons, ammo and health pickups. You can even slam into an opponent's car and steal their weapon if timed correctly, which is pretty cool - particularly in multiplayer mode against human opponents.

The handheld weapons include shotguns, pistols, sub machine guns and heavy machine guns, and then there's the heavy artillery, the fixed weapons, such as rocket launchers, described cryptically in the manual: "With a fixed weapon, you can get crunk." Crunk, as in southern hip-hop?? That makes little sense to me, but neither does quantum physics, so why complain.

That's the premise of the game then. Drive the cars, try to keep your boost gauge filled and if anyone draws near, unleash hell.

The story is quite amusing, if only for the main characters' penchants for gratuitous profanity, and the game has a distinctly gritty ghetto feel to it, evidenced in the some of the music (supplied by Guerilla Black) and the in-game speech.

When I first heard "Chitty Chitty bang bang, a dollar for the gang bang," I was amused and horrified in equal parts - what would Dick Van Dyke think? Gang bang indeed...

If you tire of the story mode, or finish it, which is entirely possible considering it's not-too-lengthy, there are other areas to tackle, including an entertaining (if limited) multiplayer mode.

Jumping online and blowing the living tripe out of friends and strangers is a lot of fun, and probably the pick of the multiplayer modes, but I was pleased to see a 1-4 system link option, which we took great advantage of in our spare time; there's something primordially satisfying when car racing and combat are combined.

A split-screen mode for those with only one system and no Xbox Live is included too, plus there's even a co-op mode where one player drives and the other shoots (remember the arcade game Lucky and Wild?), where instead of having an auto-targeting system that only fires front and back, the shooter has 360 degree freedom in this mode.

The gunner, or should I say homeboy (crunk!), also controls the boost, which can make this co-op game mode very interesting (and precariously harmful for all involved) if the gunner decides not to use boost strategically. "Use it on the straights, aiight, not in the corners, foo." "Wha-choo say da mee?" "I said yo mamma wears army boots!!" And so on.

187 Ride or Die will appeal to all the homeboys out there who pay homage to the gansta-rap scene, as it's deeply entrenched in this American subculture. It's also got some nice ideas in there, and anyone who likes racing fast cars through Los Angeles, wantonly destroying other cars and roadside objects would be advised to at least give a burl.

Not groundbreaking by a long shot, and a bit slack for something developed by the people behind XIII and King Kong, but an interesting idea that - if it had more depth and longevity - would be tremendously gratifying. Here's hoping for a sequel with more polish.

Game: 187 Ride or Die
System: Xbox
Players: 1-2
Online: Yes
Developer: Ubisoft France
Distributor: Ubisoft

Rating: 65%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

187 Ride or Die is on the shelves now.

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