Description:
Despite its setting, theres an oddly foreign feel to L.A. Street Racing. Its partially because of the laughably shoddy English used by your street-racing rivals in the game, but more than that, its because you get the feeling when playing LASR that the developers have never really been to Los Angeles before. The result is a game that isnt bereft of high pointsthe feel of the cars being one of thembut also isnt able to transcend its numerous inadequacies.
LASRs single-player game challenges you to become the king of the L.A. motorsports scene by taking on a seemingly never-ending stream of challengers looking to knock you down a few rungs on the street racing ladder. This is not a bad concept for a game, but where LASR fails to inspire is in its execution. For example, instead of having free reign of the city, picking up challenges as you drive your whip around the town, youll simply be parked in one of four increasingly prestigious sections of Los Angeles. As you sit there, challengers will simply pull up to you one by one and challenge you to a race. Or, often more amusingly, a challenger may cast a badly translated zinger your way, such as I dont want to ruin your confidence! Now get lost! Ooh burn.
Despite the lame insults, LASR manages to find a way to inject some intrigue into practically every race through a betting system, whereby both racers wager one or more parts from their ride against one another. These parts can be trivial, such as decals and body kits, or include more important upgrades, such as engines, tires, nitrous kits, or even your opponents car. This system also ties directly into LASRs limited car customization. The only way to improve your cars performance is by winning performance upgrades on the streets. Beyond that, theres no way to tweak the performance of your cars. Thanks to a fairly wide performance gulf between the 10 cars you collect in the game, this system often proves to be frustrating and frequently unbalanced.
That lack of balance is mainly found in the cars you unlock late in the game. With one exception, the late-game models seem underpowered in comparison to the competition you face. As a result, youre usually at a distinct disadvantage at the start of every race, so unless you find a way to score a miraculous win or get lucky when your computer opponent makes a mistake, youre going to lose the race. If you made a wager, youll also lose an important part for your car. Going up against these overpowered cars means youre very cautious late in the game, rejecting any challenge that you know you cant easily beat. Thus, you spend far too long just sitting there and rejecting all comers until the right challenge comes your way.
Worse yet, late in LASR, youll likely lose every shred of racing decency youve honed over the years. Faced with the risk of losing your precious engine upgrade or level-three tires to an unfairly overpowered opponent, you spend your time not merely looking for ways to pass your opponents but rather to slam them into a wall. Or better yet, you look for ways to spin them around completely so you can get a clean break. Its not what racing gameseven underground racing gamesshould be about, and it certainly isnt fun.
Thats a shame because, at its core, theres an entirely acceptable driving model in LASR. The first-person cockpit view looks good, and you really get a feel for the different cars you collect in the game. For example, its easy to tell the difference between a front-wheel drive car and a rear-wheel drive car. Better yet, each significant performance upgrade you make to your car is tangibly felt in its on-the-road performance, whether its a noticeable jump off the line, thanks to a new engine, or better cornering around the hairpins with a new set of tires. While most of the damage to the cars in LASR is cosmetic, the cars will suffer performance hindrances after hard scrapes. On the down side, even the most dramatic crashes in the game feature audio effects that sound like someone vigorously slapped a lunchbox with a fork. But damage is just an afterthought because you can pause the game and choose the rescue and repair option at any time to instantly get your car back to full racing trim.

Minimum System Requirements :
System: Intel Pentium III 1.2 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Video Memory: 32 MB
Hard Drive Space: 1200 MB
Other: Windows 2000/XP

Recommended System Requirements :
System: Pentium 5 2.4 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 512 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB




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