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| | Title:
Ford Bold Moves Street Racing
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System:
Xbox
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Genre:
Racing
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Publisher:
Eidos Interactive
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Developer:
Razorworks
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Release:
Fall 2006
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Online:
No
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ESRB:
Everyone (E)
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Do you own a PS2 or Xbox? Presumably, yes. Do you like racing games and want the best racing experience your money can buy? Presumably, yes, and have you already played Gran Turismo 4 or Forza Motorsport? Yes...No? It all comes down to the last question for racing fans looking for a decent racing title. Because if you’ve already played either of the two top selling titles for the PS2 or Xbox, not much here in Bold Moves Street Racing will appeal to serious racing fans.
Arcade gamers on the other hand...they might find a budget-priced gem in the generic racer that is Bold Moves Street Racing. On the plus side, the game is very fast after unlocking the high performance vehicles. However, the downside is that before unlocking the high-performance vehicles, players must trudge through races using classics and standard performance cars (and one truck). The vehicle selection spans fords mediocre muscle cars to their high performance concept cars, including Shelby's GT500, the new Mustang and even the GT90. This wouldn’t have been so bad if maybe the high-performance cars were worth the trouble earning. While they are much faster than the classics and standard cars, the problem is that they are much harder to control. Gear heads are probably thinking to themselves “...this guy probably just doesn’t know how to handle a lot of horse power.” And that could have been the excuse had the physics been more realistic.
Instead, the game offers a lot of speed at the expense of semi-arcade, semi-realistic drifting. If there’s one thing that boggles me more than fake car damage (I’ll get to that in a second), is semi-realistic, semi-arcade racing. Flatout, Juiced and other wannabes have been accused of this physics mechanic. Bold Moves Racing has arcade speeds with strange handling for some cars. While you’re pushing the car to go faster, meeting turns requires an opposite strategy of slightly pumping the brakes and easing off the accelerator to make the turn. Hence, it was like going from Outrun down the straight-aways and drift-turns, and then switching to Forza when making sharp and hairpin turns. For that, the game carries a strange handling stigma where you’re either too afraid to go too fast or too bold to slow down for turns (pun intended).
The good thing about the racing mechanics is that you can adjust to some of the cars’ handling while others are hopeless to master (the GT40 is fast but tough to control). This problem easily could have been fixed with a little user-modification option for the vehicles. Gear heads will be sorely disappointed to know that this game offers no way of customizing, upgrading, or modifying any of Ford’s treasured beasts. Vehicles unlocked can only be purchased and driven in the game; there are no cosmetic alterations, no gear modifications, no engine tuning...nothing. I’m more of a wing and chamber kind of guy. Any racing game that has a list of things to modify has my attention; otherwise it’s just metal and wheels rolling around the track at 150 miles per hour. However, the one thing players can do to their car is repair them between races. And yes, cars do take damage.
Don’t get too excited, though, the damage for these cars is far and away from the damage feature in Forza or Flatout. Too much collision and too many bumps will physically make indentations and visible marks. But apart from a wobbly bumper or a flimsy trunk, the cars just look like crinkled up construction paper. I suppose, though, the visual effects of the damage wouldn’t have been so bad had the actual collisions compensated for the lacking damage effects. When colliding with computer opponents, the results are far from satisfactory. While there are sparks and effects from bumping and grinding with CPU opponents, nothing ever happens...no spin-outs or flip-overs. Basically, there’s a high possibility of your vehicle slowing down and your opponents passing you. At least the collisions are better than the Sega GT games.
The meat and potatoes of Ford Bold Moves Street Racing reside in its Team Competition modes. This is among the options of quick racing, solo racing, solo championship and a cheesy two player split-screen mode (you can’t even do two-player team racing). There was supposedly some system link and custom soundtrack options, but they weren’t accessible from the main menu. But the Team Competition is the mode that might make anyone take real consideration in this title. In Team Competition this is where players earn new vehicles, new challenges and unlock tracks; the box promulgates 24 tracks but there are only 12 tracks, with the option of racing in reverse. Most of the tracks aren’t really designed for high-end speed, though. There’s a lot of turns and twist, and players will have to use a lot of (arcade) skill to win effectively.
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