Real Talk By: KJ

This Fast and Furious title is a tie-in game, which takes players through select scenes of the movies. The amazing safe sequence from the fast five flick is in the game, but now you can do it in local coop. Well, that’s really the only plus about this game. Every mission across all modes can be played in split screen. We wish vehicular based games would inherit this feature more often. No online play though, but with this title it doesn’t really matter. This game was clearly rushed to coincide with the release of fast 6. Limited car customization options, and a soundtrack that is uber generic. Lyrics are repetitive, annoying, just bad. Plain and bland is the phrases to best describe this racing/action hybrid. The cars are licensed, so there’s a little bit of good news.

The controls are really clunky. Regardless of the vehicle, certain collisions that would normally have little effect on a vehicle, completely stops your ride. If it doesn’t do that, it will spin the whip around in such a way, that you might as well restart the race. That happened to me plenty of times driving the semi trucks. Making simple turns shouldn’t feel like a chore, lets not even get into drifting. Vehicle handling all around is just horrendous. On top of it the enemy AI is foolish. Police are idiotic, making it easy to get them out of the picture. When crushing cars against a wall, the camera slows down and rotates like burnout. That’s kind of cool, but I could get the same experience from actually playing Burnout. Criterion should make a Fast and Furious game, or Eutechnyx could come back to handle development of this series. Their PS2 outing wasn’t that bad.

While a few actor’s from the movie gave their likenesses, none provide voices. Vin Diesel isn’t even in here. At all. This can most likely be attributed to his love of quality games. He wasn’t having his brand involved in this mess. I’m glad, because a title like Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, should stay unscathed. The voice actor stand-ins do a bad job, the only person who comes close, is the actress filling in for Gina Carano. Even still, her performance is stiff. Like really stiff, just watch a couple of cut scenes.

Muddy graphics. If someone told me this was a PS2/Xbox game, I would believe them with no doubt. Plain and simple this is one of the most horrendous looking games available. There’s never a moment in this short game (3 hours tops) where it gets better visually, or in any other aspect. Fast and Furious has gamers hijacking trucks, but through goofy minigames, which offer no entertainment. Some missions include a player shooting an Uzi out of a car while the other drives. Seems fun doesn’t it. That’s the thing, a lot of these missions certainly sound fun, but the execution is shoddy. The aiming on the guns is awkward, and enemy models repeat far to often. The game offers other challenges where you can compete with others around the world. Racing for the best times, exc. More bonus challenges are survival missions. Brian will shoot waves of enemies and try to outlast the goons. Even something so simple is ruined in this game. This isn’t challenging by any means, and bad guys take forever to respawn. Enjoy driving for a while taking in the mediocre soundtrack, while nothing happens.

This is a game we wouldn’t recommend to anyone. How Activision let this hit the shelves is beyond us. Plenty of glitches throughout, and other things come up, but it would be hard to list everything. I deserve a Medal and Crown Royal for making it through this train-wreck of a game. Even at this $39.99 budget pricing, it’s not worth the headache. Go watch Fast and Furious 6, but leave Showdown in the garage. Lock the door.

Fast and Furious: Showdown Gets

 Out of Five

What’s Legit?

+Licensed cars

What’s Perpetrating?

-Terrible Car Physics

-Some of the worst graphics of this generation

-Good ideas, horribly executed

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