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Juiced Eliminator is THQ’s PSP version of last year’s Juiced, and while it sports a modified name and a few changes to how the career mode works, it’s essentially the game that THQ released on PC and consoles last year. This means that PSP owners now also have the option of a racer that doesn’t really know what kind it wants to be.
Juiced Eliminator looks like any other street racing title that you can find on store shelves, but you won’t find any of the city cruising that you may now be accustomed to; this is organised street racing, where the roads have been closed off and the traffic has been removed. It’s just you and your rivals, making this much more of pure racer than the likes of Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition. The lack of traffic makes the game far less exhilarating to play, though, and leaves a game that feels like every other circuit-based racer.
Juiced doesn’t really play like an arcade racer, but it isn’t really a full-blown sim either. You can’t powerslide around every corner like you can in the latest Need for Speed title, but the reliance on your nitrous for boost isn’t particularly sim-like. While Ridge Racer-style sliding would have been going too far, a driving model like that seen in the Project Gotham Racing series would have been perfect. Juiced had an identity crisis and the PSP game suffers from exactly the same problem – despite arriving a whole year after the series’ console debut.
Visually the game looks pretty smart, with an effective use of motion blur and a generally smooth frame rate. The big problem is the pretty unremarkable track designs – you aren’t racing through real cities and the tracks tend to merge together in your mind. Given that there’s no traffic to spice things up, some more variety would have helped no end. The audio is what you’d expect from a street racer, although the soundtrack has been created from scratch for the PSP game. It’s questionable whether or not it’s actually better than the collection featured in Juiced, but with the likes of Fallout Boy and Limp Bizkit, it fits with the tone of the game.
The main career mode in Juiced suffered from some severe design issues, and thankfully these have been partially sorted out in the PSP game. Progression is based on respect from rival crews and the more respect you earn, the more events appear on the race calendar. In last year’s game some of these races were free, but most cost money to enter. Juiced Eliminator does away with fees, and this makes progression through the career mode far less tedious than before, as you’re never forced to enter the free races in order to claw back enough money to take part in the big events.
You generally have the choice of four main event types: Point To Point, Circuit races, Sprints, and Show Offs. The betting mechanic from the original game is still present, and making cagey bets is still the best option if you don’t want to be totally broke while in need of a new upgrade. Betting is actually far more fun than it was in the console game as there’s nowhere near the same amount of pressure on your performance. A lost bet will lose you some cash, but it won’t force you to race in tedious events for a few hours in order to get back above the street racing poverty line.
Something worth noting is the ‘pink slip’ race. These races give you the chance to put your ride on the line against an AI opponent. Sadly, this is as flawed as most of the game, with your rival’s ride not being shown until it’s too late. You can back out, but you’ll lose respect, so it’s often best to take a beating and lose your car. Depending on your personality, you’ll probably have mixed feelings on this. For thrill seekers, putting it all on the line may well be the best game mechanic of all time, but for everyone else, it can be rather demoralising.
There are obviously other game modes, such as the arcade mode and custom race mode, but neither warrant an extended amount of play time. New to the PSP game is Career Challenge. As a mode separate to the actual Career mode, it’s basically a series of challenges set by rival team leaders. They’re not terribly exciting, mainly due to the fact that the driving model simply doesn’t suit a street racing title. Control on the PSP is actually marginally worse than in previous versions of the game, as the analogue stick is far too twitchy and the d-pad feels a tad sluggish.
The multiplayer is a lot more appealing, but only if you’re likely to find some other PSP owners with the game – the online play seen in the original game is nowhere to be seen. The ‘pink slip’ races feature in multiplayer too, allowing you to put your hard-earned cars on the line against other human opponents. It’s a really nice touch, but has limited appeal, considering most people simply won’t want to potentially throw away all their hard work.
The PSP is hardly struggling for good racing games, and the likes of Burnout Legends, the Need for Speed games, and Rockstar’s Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition are all better alternatives for the street racer crowd. Those games know their audience and play to it perfectly. Juiced Eliminator attempts to simulate what it’s like to be a street racer, but it simply lacks the flair and excitement that other games in the genre offer.
