"That's not what the street racers say!"
That’s not what the street racers say….Or is it? For our very first import game review I give you the game based on the popular anime series from Japan I bring you Initial D: Street Stage. The portable version of the world renound Arcade game, Initial D Version.3.
Story : You are a faceless character whom is set out to do what KT and Ry Takahashi couldn’t do, and that is to race all over Japan and beat any opponent that comes your way. Even though the unbeatable Takumi Fujiwara is one of your first opponents you can still win the game.
Presentation: There has really been no Improvements to the game from its Arcade predecessor that are noticeable, other than 19:9 ratio support. But even though there has not been many changes made to the gameplay or graphics, that is one of the things that make this game great. It takes you back to the old Sega arcade days where you had games like House of the Dead, Crazy Taxi, and all the different Virtual games. It truly shows why Sega is the King of the Arcade
The games driving Mechanics are that above Need for Speed and Midnight club yet somehow still have the SIM feeling to it. And the many different course selections from easy lap races to a downhill drift battles give this game all the difficulty and fun for any racing game fan. Adding to is the Adhoc WiFi multiplayer mode that allows you to challenge your friends to a race is great. It has everything any great racing game should have.
Gameplay: As I stated before the game play is that of any standard racing game. You select your car and choose your track, however there are different modes to choose from. There Is Time Attack, Story mode, And Multiplayer. After you successfully complete the game you can unlock Buntas Challange (Im not sure if it is true since I have yet to finish the game completely but there is a blacked out menu option). You can select any car you want since you do not need to buy them so you are not limited to what car you want to use at any given time. Upgrading the cars is easy since after every race you are given a choice between 3 cards and if you pick the right one you can go upgrade the car with which whatever part you got. However this can be annoying since you don’t always pick the right one and it shows you after what you could have picked instead leading to duplicate selections. There are also many different options which you can choose during time attack to change your track experience, from choosing which way to drive the course, Day or night, or dry or wet. Most racing games ive played it doesn’t seem to make a difference which you choose but in this game it does really affect you driving because in night mode you can’t see turns ahead of you and in rain you slide much more than usual.I also like the fact that you can select the song you want to listen to before you start the race. Although it would be nice if you could listen to pre loaded music on your memory card.
I haz teh ADVANTAGE!
Special: I picked this game up at Fry’s electronics for 20 bucks here in Southern California, and it plays on my USS PSP-2000 series
Conclusion: Before Crisis Core this was in my opinion the best game on the PSP, and even now I still think it is one of the absolute best Racing games available. I can see that some people can argue that its not SIM like enough to be Gran Turismo, or Forza, and that it’s not free roam like the old Need for Speed, and Midnight club, but for a track racing game it leaves them all as just headlight in the rearview mirror. It is a faithful port of the arcade version and doesn’t disappoint in the least. The menus are easy enough to figure out after a few minutes that anyone can play this game. So if you are a fan of Initial D or you want a great racing game and aren’t afraid even though it’s all in Japanese then I highly Recommend this game.
Initial D: Street Stage for PSP is a ***** out of 5
By: Tim Major
