E3 06: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift Preshow Impressions
The Fast and the Furious may not have been the original street-racing movie, but it certainly had a lot to do with the mainstream acceptance of the customized-import racing scene. The third movie in the franchise, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift will be hitting theaters this summer, and a video game version will be riding shotgun. At a recent Namco press event we got to see an early version of this drift-intensive driving game and talk it over with some of its producers.
As the name of the game suggests, Tokyo Drift's driving model focuses just as much on driving with style as it does on driving with speed. Most of your time in the game will be spent navigating the labyrinth of highways that snake through greater Tokyo, looking for challenges on the road in the form of "roll-up" races, or peeling off onto exits where you can find hotspot races, check out the various dealerships to look for a new car, or head to a tuner shop, where you can further customize one of your existing rides.
You start off the game with a basic Nissan Sylvia but, over the course of the game, you will have access to more than 120 licensed rides to buy and customize as you see fit. Tokyo Drift's customization options are some of the most extensive we've seen in a racing game lately. There are more than 300 licensed body kits found in the game, from makes such as Spoon and Vertex, and you'll have the option of choosing between modular kits that you can mix and match parts of as you go, or full wide-body conversions. The amount of options for tuning here is impressive--there are the standard mods, such as adding spoilers to the rear end of the car (which will affect its handling) or choosing new tires and rims, or more esoteric add-ons, such as Katamari Damacy or Pac-Man toe-hook toys or neon street glow to line the bottom of your ride. If your car has retractable headlights, you can decide whether you want both headlights up, both down, one up and one down, or set to "sleepy eye" (half open). With all of these options at your disposal, expect to take your ride to new levels of pimpitude.
As you make changes to your car, you'll be given immediate feedback for how each change you make will affect your car's handling; brake horsepower, weight, and torque numbers will all be affected by the different parts and tuning choices you make. You can even do engine swaps in certain cars and set your ride up to specialize in certain race types found in the game.
When it comes to the action on the road, races come in three main varieties in Tokyo Drift--grip, speed, and drift races. Grip races are sprints to the bottom or top of the many mountains found in the game, while speed battles require you to get from one point to the next in as little time as possible. Variations on speed-battle races include putting a certain amount of distance between you and your competition. The final race type, drift battles, aren't tests of speed, but rather tests of style. It won't matter if you cross the finish line first in a drift battle--the only thing that's counted in your favor is the amount of drift you can generate in the tight corners that comprise the mountainous circuits. To aid you in your pursuit of ultimate drift, Tokyo Drift's interface includes an arced meter toward the bottom of the screen that gives you instant feedback on the severity of your drift; the "deeper" the drift, the more the meter fills up.
Drift battles are all about racking up points by sliding through the turns, and you'll use the meter to carefully monitor your car through the turn to avoid spins. While we liked the idea of earning points for sliding, we didn't like the fact that there was no indication onscreen of how well your opponent was doing on the track. Because of this, we had to wait until the end of the race to see the final results. Including a running point total for your opponents would be a welcome addition to the game, and Tokyo Drift producers said they are considering adding it in a later build.
With both split-screen and online support on the PlayStation 2, as well as ad hoc wireless support on the PlayStation Portable, Tokyo Drift looks to offer a solid set of multiplayer features on top of its already robust customization tools. The game is due for release later this year, and we'll bring you more information as it comes our way.
Other Preview articles for The Fast and the Furious
| The Fast and the Furious Hands-On Impressions |
