The Fast and the Furious (ファスト・アンド・フュリアス) is a racing game for the PlayStation 2 and the PlayStation Portable.
The game is based on the film series of the same name, particularly, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. It should not be confused with The Fast and the Furious arcade game, which was later ported to the Wii. The game is also considered a spiritual successor to Street Racing Syndicate (2004).
Gameplay[]
This game features many different races that may take place on the Wangan, or on the local mountain roads called Touge. There are two types of races that can take place on the Wangan: Destination Races - a simple point to point race, and Top Speed Battles - whoever can set the highest speed record in between the start and finish wins. The Touge also features two events: Grip Battles - point to point race going uphill or downhill through tight Hairpin Turns, and Drift Battles - whoever can accumulate the most points by the end of the run wins. Throughout the Wangan are several exits which can lead to hotspots - where Wangan races can be started, touges, Car Dealerships, tune shops, and Robo-Garages. These garages were featured in the film The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. There are 8 different dealerships where vehicles can be purchased: Nissan dealership, Mitsubishi dealership, Mazda dealership, Honda dealership, Toyota dealership, Subaru dealership, Lexus dealership, and a U.S. Naval Base - where according to the instruction booklet included with the game, cars are brought over by stationed soldiers who end up selling them or are just imported. The tune shops are spread over the map and offer performance upgrades, visual upgrades, and paint jobs which are free and fully customizable by the player.
Cars[]
The game includes many Japanese cars that appeared in that particular film such as the Mazda RX-7, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, Subaru Impreza WRX STI, Toyota Supra, Honda NSX and the Nissan Skyline. There are also some American cars such as the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 and the Shelby GT500.
Development[]
In 2003, an anticipated game with the same name was developed and then cancelled for unknown reasons (due to the graphics compared to Need for Speed: Underground by Electronic Arts, which released in the same year). Although the promotional trailer could be seen and was similar to Midnight Club II. The game was going to be set in Los Angeles, California, the setting of the first film in the series. The two games by two different developers however, (the cancelled game by Genki; the released game by Eutechnyx), and were not related in any way. The project was picked up and released by Rockstar Games, and Rockstar San Diego five years later, renamed to Midnight Club: Los Angeles, with reworked gameplay and a redone physics engine. But some of the vehicles seen in the cancelled version were removed.
Reception[]
The game was not received particularly well. IGN gave it a 6.6 out of 10 (passable), saying the game did "a number of things mostly right, but only a few things very well."
Trivia[]
At the first touge, Doushi, there is three reminiscence of Initial D, with a driver in a yellow Mazda RX-7 FD named Reisuke and another in a white Mazda RX-7 FC named Kyosuke, there is also a driver named Hiroto has an exact replica of the Initial D AE86. Also, there is a vinyl apparently being the Fujiwara Tofu shop sticker, but it's just an AutoExe vinyl written in Japanese. Kazuya Bai's tune shop has An Initial D AE86 replica, go to kazuya's shop then look around then you can see Takumi Fujiwara's AE86 which cannot be driven in game. The game itself seems to be Namco's inspiration of the arcade-exclusive Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune series, Initial D and Genki's Shudokou Battle series (known in North America as Tokyo Xtreme Racer and in Europe as Tokyo Highway Challenge), as the racing takes place on both the Wangan and the togue, like in the Kaido Battle games. However, it makes use of aftermarket customization, similar to EA's Need for Speed Underground.
This game could possibly take place after Tokyo Drift because the bio of the characters from the first three films (who appear only in their cars and not in person) discuss the events they were involved in up to that point. However some of the cars from the film were used in this game and the locations in this game are also from the movie. The parking garage area where drift battles took place in Tokyo Drift (and in Furious 7) can be driven in, but only in the drift tutorials.