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LA Rush PS2 Review - www.impulsegamer.com -

Gameplay 7.2
Graphics 7.0
Sound 6.9
Value 7.0
Distributor: Red Ant
Classification:
M15+
Review Date:
October 2005
Reviewer:
Tory Favro

7.0


L.A. Rush

In a hybrid type of pimp my ride kind of way comes LA Rush backed by the West Coast Customs name. I immediately thought of West Coast Choppers when I heard about the association however I digress. This is an adventure tale where you get to ahem, pimp your ride J 

The story is fairly bog standard with you trying to right the wrongs against you and build up your street rep and earn money by racing. To its credit, the games sense of scope and scale is huge, with sprawling cityscape to make your way through at blistering speeds. There is also tons of traffic to make your way through (or not!) and crashes abound through the title. 

For those of you sort of hoping to interact with the modding side of the car, forget about doing that now. You get your ride to West Coast and they look after the rest, no player interaction allowed sorry. You even get the Pimp My Ride theme thrown in for kicks! 

Your character’s name in the storyline is Trikz, a wealthy street racer who has all his cars stolen and is on a quest to get them all back. You are on a mission now and have to race and win money to get into street races. 

One of the main things that annoyed me was the progression structure to the game where you need to buy your way into a race. As long as you don’t place last, all is good but if you do for whatever fickle reason the slightly inadequate AI  gives you, you’ve lost your money and need to buy in again, which means you have to go earn money by participating in the cheaper races then going back to where you were. It’s a fair bit of backtracking that just ticked me off. 

A credit to the title is the fact that there are real licensed cars in this game, a fact that sets it apart from other racers, and yes you can damage them. I think this is a credit to both manufacturer and developer and a real failing on the part of games like Gran Turismo. I mean let’s face it; wouldn’t you love to trash a virtual luxury car? I know that I would. 

All things said and done L.A. Rush is a nice looking game that doesn’t stand out too much from the crowd of racers in the market. There are some great moments in it and the city itself is a living breathing entity. The game’s AI is a bit dodgy and the progression structure takes some patience. 

The soundtrack is a good mix of genres but never does enough to make itself stand out from other titles that are similar. It’s a solid enough game but not enough to scream out for you to buy it. With a launch price of $79.95,  it might even be worth waiting for it to drop in price. The game may be a bit better on XBox, however it appears to be the actual game mechanics that are throwing it a  bit with the rubberband AI. We’ll try and find out for you in the weeks to come.

 






 
 



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