Juiced: Eliminator

This is a good PSP port, far better than what EA was doing with Need For Speed for PSP by then.

Juiced is one of those games which have more fun factor than actual quality. Actually, some things were so poorly thought of, I thought unbelievable they made to the release.


Handling: handling styles are extremely varied. The CRX steers like a brick, but it's decent for early in the career mode. The Integra, Impreza WRX and Skyline are safe choices for all classes between 8 and 3. I found the 350Z the most playable between the sliders (not that I found time to give a chance to all of them!). I only discovered the Clio V6 late in the game, but it became my favorite. The FTO was also very pleasant. I think there were more cars I disliked than otherwise. The good ones were actually good, at least.

Most races favor FWD and 4WD cars over RWD.

Juiced is that kind of racing game where you crash a ton, ram opponents and still win.

Damage system is very arcade-ish: first the neon is damaged, then the nitro, then the turbo, then the steering, and so on.


Map design: some developers have over-downgraded geometries on their PSP ports. NFS: Most Wanted 5-1-0 felt like like doing hundreds of small jumps every minute of racing, making steering odd and unpredictable. On Juiced, most maps were smooth and well designed, and I found about four troublesome spots out of all circuits, and all of them on areas belonging by the last two characters.


Challenge: Juiced's AI is poor. The opponents have a bad driving line. They cause a butchery on start, then get overlapped once or twice by the fifth lap.

There's trouble if you fail to get 1st early on the race, or race with a low HP car on the slower classes. Note that a 601HP ClioV6 or Skyline can smoke AI's 699HP cars - handling seems to matter more than horsepower at faster classes.

I didn't feel a difficulty increase as the career mode's calendar advanced, only that some of the faster cars were tougher to control.


Gameplay: Career mode is the interesting part of Juiced. Cars are divided in eight classes, each class comprising a range of 100HP. Cars of 200HP and 299HP race together, while cars of 299HP and 300HP do not. So the aim is to get three good handling cars near X99 HP for each class, one for yourself and two for your AI teammates. Cars have five upgrade levels, including stock; each complete level moves the car up by one class. The game allows partial upgrades, making easier to keep just below the X99 HP bar. The last class, prototype, requires to win races awarding specific equipment pieces. Events for some of the pieces can be scarce, I had trouble getting the tires, while having prototype turbos unlocked on every car. Car tuning is not straightforward, I took a few days to understand the point of it, and still feels some stuff, like brand selection, were unnecessary.

Career mode has no end, I think. The completion bar jumps to 100% once you beat the host challenge against the last character. As one of the characters respects "Best Car", it's possible to complete the game at class five.

On the PC version (I played it between 2007 and 08) a random opponent will prompt a betting before every race; deny or reduce the value and you'll lose respect with that character, increase the value to gain some extra respect. On the PSP version all bets are optional, making easier to manage the cash, but removing one source of respect points. As result, increasing respect points with certain characters became sporadic.

Also, the PC version of Juiced takes a race entrance fee and a car repair bill. The PSP version has neither. Cash is only a constraint in the first half hour of playing. By the time I completed the respect bar I had enough to buy the most expensive car fifty times over. Managing cash was troubling on the PC version, the PSP version was unbalanced in opposite way.

There is crew racing mode, which is frustrating at first (end result is decided solely by the worst driver of the crew), but gets interesting once the crew mates skill level is maxed out. I also realized that the cars that were better for me to handle, were also better for the AI. There's some fun is racing against your own team, at maximum skill they give better challenge and drive cleaner than opponents.

I'll finish with a rant: dealing with Pink Slip invites becomes an annoyance after a while. I can't browse through menus, or select an event, or check team challenges for more than five seconds without being prompted to a Pink Slip invite. There are usually two between each race. It's like browsing through bad websites without adblock. They keep on coming even after I reached the maximum cars amount. Another poorly thought thing about Pink Slips is that it only involves the highest class available in your garage. Meaning you'll end up with a lot of repeated cars. When I played the PC version of Juiced I ended with a lot of Vipers. On the PSP version I stopped at class three and by now I only get muscle cars.


The bottom line: Fun and (mostly) pleasant, with many minor issues, Juiced has more cons than pros, but can keep a casual player entertained for a couple weeks as long not bothering too much with its shortcomings.