Xbox Hardware & Games

Reminding you that death racing in the street is still a worthy pastime.

Video: 4
Sound: 3.5
Gameplay: 3

Ahh, the lost art of death racing in the city streets. There's something satisfying about racing a car while destroying your opponents, and 187: Ride or Die ably allows me to live out those psychotic fantasies.

You are Buck, a gang banger and expert driver. You owe the main gangsta in town some money, so you agree to help the man out by doing some driving. And by doing some driving, I mean racing around courses set in urban environments whilst trying to slow your enemies down with a large arsenal.

There are some other missions throughout the game that don't involve racing, but you're still driving the car while shooting at the bad guys. Of course, calling them bad guys may be a little misleading, as you're technically supposed to be a "bad mofo." One mission requires you to race around a parking garage and destroy other vehicles so you may advance to the exit. Another has you protecting an SUV on the highway while the rival gang tries to destroy you both. As you win the races and missions, you win medals, and these medals unlock subsequent missions and cars, as well as the occasional "homie."

The game is fun but repetitive. After an hour or so, you grow tired of driving around and destroying things. That a lot of the same maps are reused but with different objectives doesn't help-more repetition. Another minor qualm is that the driving tends to be confusing when you're simultaneously trying to shoot at your enemie. Also, the control configuration is a little awkward, and your wrists begin to ache from being in the same position for so long. Not to mention that sometimes, while engaging in a skid, you can push the controller stick too hard, and wind up looking behind you instead of ahead.

The graphics are decent in the gameplay, but the cut scenes are pretty spectacular, as far as photo-realistic characters go. Some of the action sequences look like they could have been taken out of The Fast and the Furious stunt work. (That's supposed to be complimentary.) The characters look frighteningly real and textured. I wish the whole game looked as stunningly good as these scenes. However, what was being said in these scenes was pretty stupid and generically stereotypical of "gangsta culture." The rest of the game's graphics when compared to these scenes are a bit of a letdown. Sure, they look good, but this again brings me back to the repetitious nature of the game: It looks good, I just got tired of seeing the same things.

The sound is decent, but it doesn't make great use of the surround system setup. Still, it does provide the fun effects like bullets whizzing by your head. The music is pretty much the same rotation of hip-hop and rap songs that tend to become annoying after a while. Essentially, the audio doesn't really push your home theater's surround sound.

While it's not the greatest game out there, I still had a lot of fun playing 187: Ride or Die. It's not as graphic and nowhere near as involving as the Grand Theft Auto series, yet it managed to satisfy my virtual blood lust. You can do a lot worse, but, for use with your home theater system, you could do a lot better.