''The Fast and the Furious'' is a 2006

racing game Racing games are a video game genre in which the player participates in a racing competition. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to fantastical settings. They are distributed along a spectrum between more realistic ra ...

developed by

Eutechnyx Eutechnyx Limited (formerly Zeppelin Games Limited, until 1994, and Merit Studios (Europe) Limited, until 1997) is a British video game developer based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Since 1997, the company has focused on racing games. They a ...

and published by

Namco Bandai Games is a Japanese multinational video game publisher headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo. Its international branches, Bandai Namco Entertainment America and Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe, are respectively headquartered in Irvine, California and ...

for the

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

and PlayStation Portable. The game is based on the ''

Fast & Furious ''Fast & Furious'' (also known as ''The Fast and the Furious'') is a media franchise centered on a series of action films that are largely concerned with street racing, heists, spies, and family. The franchise also includes short films, ...

'' film series, particularly the third film '' The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift''.

Gameplay

Players race on the

Shuto Expressway is a network of toll expressways in the Greater Tokyo Area of Japan. It is operated and maintained by the . Most routes are grade-separated (elevated roads or tunnels) and central routes have many sharp curves and multi-lane merges that requi ...

(Wangan) or mountain roads (

Touge A mountain pass is a navigable route through a mountain range or over a ridge. Since many of the world's mountain ranges have presented formidable barriers to travel, passes have played a key role in trade, war, and both human and animal migrat ...

). On the expressway, players can compete in point-to-point races or contests to achieve the highest speed between the start and finish. The mountain roads also have point-to-point races but also have competitions for the most

drift Drift or Drifts may refer to: Geography * Drift or ford (crossing) of a river * Drift, Kentucky, unincorporated community in the United States * In Cornwall, England: ** Drift, Cornwall, village ** Drift Reservoir, associated with the village ...

. Hotspots are positioned along the roads to access race starts and car dealerships. There are eight different dealerships where vehicles can be purchased:

Nissan , trade name, trading as Nissan Motor Corporation and often shortened to Nissan, is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. The company sells ...

dealership, Mitsubishi dealership,

Mazda , commonly referred to as simply Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Fuchū, Hiroshima, Japan. In 2015, Mazda produced 1.5 million vehicles for global sales, the majority of which (nearly one m ...

dealership,

Honda is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a producti ...

dealership,

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

dealership, Subaru dealership,

Lexus is the luxury vehicle division of the Japanese automaker Toyota. The Lexus brand is marketed in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide and is Japan's largest-selling make of premium cars. It has ranked among the 10 largest Japanese ...

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. The game includes many Japanese cars such as the

Mazda RX-7 The Mazda RX-7 is a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, rotary engine-powered sports car that was manufactured and marketed by Mazda from 1978 until 2002 across three generations, all of which made use of a compact, lightweight Wankel rotary engine. ...

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, popularly referred to as the 'Evo', is a sports sedan and rally car based on the Lancer that was manufactured by Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi Motors from 1992 until 2016. There have been ten official versio ...

Subaru Impreza WRX STI The is a compact car that has been manufactured by the Japanese automaker Subaru since 1992. It was introduced as a replacement for the Subaru Leone, Leone, with the predecessor's Subaru EA engine, EA series engines replaced by the new Subaru EJ ...

Toyota Supra is a sports car and grand tourer manufactured by the Toyota Motor Corporation beginning in 1978. The name " supra" is derived from the Latin prefix, meaning "above", "to surpass" or "go beyond". The initial four generations of the Supra were ...

Honda NSX The Honda NSX, marketed in North America as the Acura NSX, is a two-seat, mid-engined coupe sports car manufactured by Honda. The origins of the NSX trace back to 1984, with the HP-X (Honda Pininfarina eXperimental) concept, which was a mid-eng ...

and the

Nissan Skyline The is a brand of automobile originally produced by the Prince Motor Company starting in 1957, and then by Nissan after the two companies merged in 1967. After the merger, the Skyline and its larger counterpart, the Nissan Gloria, were sold i ...

. However, Honda and Acura vehicles were not featured in the PAL version, due to licensing issues. There are also some American cars such as the

Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 refers to different models of the Chevrolet Corvette: * Chevrolet Corvette (C2)#Z06, Chevrolet Corvette C2 Z06 (1963) * Chevrolet Corvette (C5)#Z06, Chevrolet Corvette C5 Z06 (2001-2004) * Chevrolet Corvette (C6)#Z06, Chevrole ...

and the

Shelby GT500 The Shelby Mustang is a high-performance variant of the Ford Mustang built by Shelby American from 1965 to 1967 and by the Ford Motor Company from 1968 to 1970. In 2005, Ford revived the Shelby nameplate for a high-performance model of the f ...

Development

In 2003,

Universal Interactive Universal Interactive (formerly Universal Interactive Studios) was an American video game publisher. The company was established on January 4, 1994, and led by Skip Paul and Robert Biniaz of MCA. It was best known for producing the ''Crash Ban ...

announced a ''Fast and the Furious'' game was in development by

Genki Genki may refer to: *Genki (company), a Japanese video game company *Genki (era), a Japanese era name *Genki (given name) Genki (written: 元気, 元喜, 元基, 元規, 源気 or 源基) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with th ...

, and showed off a demo of the game at that year's E3 expo. The promotional trailer is included as one of the bonus features in the '' 2 Fast 2 Furious'' DVD. However, that game was cancelled when Universal Interactive was shut down as a separate publisher the following year after ties between parent company

Vivendi Games Vivendi Games was an American video game publisher and holding company based in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1996 as CUC Software, the publishing subsidiary of CUC International, after the latter acquired video game companies Davidson & Assoc ...

and Universal Studios were severed. The published game is was a wholly separate development, begun under license from the film studio. It is considered a spiritual successor to 2004's ''

Street Racing Syndicate ''Street Racing Syndicate'' is a multiplatform racing video game produced by Eutechnyx, and released by Namco on August 31, 2004 for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox and Windows-based personal computers. The game was also released for the Game B ...

'', which was also developed by Eutechnyx and published by Namco, and with which it shares many themes and gameplay elements.

Reception

The game was met with mixed reception.

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

and

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

gave it a score of 58% and 59 out of 100 for the PlayStation 2 version and 55% and 58 out of 100 for the PSP version.

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fast and the Furious, The 2006 video games Japan in non-Japanese culture Eutechnyx games PlayStation 2 games Cancelled Xbox games PlayStation Portable games Bandai Namco games Fast & Furious video games Street racing video games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Video games scored by Tom Salta Multiplayer and single-player video games Video games set in Tokyo