Street Racing Syndicate is a street racing themed racing game. In which player’s race around the streets of city or alternatively in controlled events. This game is one of many early 2000’s street racing games. Unsurprisingly this is a game of many that attempted to cash in on the street racing craze at the time.
Unsurprisingly this game is a direct port of a 2004 console game with no updates made to the game. Sadly there have been no updates to accommodate the requirements of modern computers. As a result of this the game looks and feels very dated. Primarily because the game designed to play on a CRT monitor rather than a modern computer.
This is noticeable if you use the larger screen settings because images become more pixelated especially in the user interfaces. But visually the in game graphics are ok for an early 2000’s game. However this game has no individuality to separate it from other titles of the era. On a visual level the age of the game is noticeable. Everything in game from the reflections, lighting, the in game assets and even the textures used in game look dated. Whilst this isn’t horrendous to look at it isn’t an oil painting by any means.
Whilst visually the game is poor you would think that the gameplay would be good but sadly it isn’t. I feel that the gameplay is quite poor for various reasons. Also the game is orientates around grinding for most of the game. I feel that this is a drawback for a racing game as you would want to do different races. The grinding in the game is based around a respect system that is in game. In which you earn respect points by winning races and doing other challenges. Some of these challenges range in difficulty based on what race you are playing on. Whilst driving a whole lap without crashing is easy for most races. Some challenges make no sense as you can’t drift in a drag race.
However you can only earn a maximum of 1000 points per race. Each race offers you up to 750 for winning and up to 250 for respect points. As a result of the limit of points you can earn in each race. You will end up having to replay the same races constantly in order to gain 1000 points in each race. But the fun part is that some of the races are in 1 v 1 drag races. In these races you have to earn points (which are mainly for drifting). I think that it is a difficult task to do that in these races.
I also think that the game is very poor in the game design. Especially around on upgrading the vehicles as you don’t have to unlock or earn any extra parts in the game. Since every part is available from the start (with the exception of purchasing the parts of course). However you aren’t shown the effect of what part has such as making the car lighter or that it is easier to handle etc. This is confusing as you don’t know what part is beneficial for. The way buy parts in game is confusing due to the amount of menus you will have to navigate. You would expect that when you are looking for a category you would expect it to get a list of all the parts needed.
But instead you then have to go through the chore of cycling through traders to pick parts. When there could be a simpler way of picking a part that you are looking for. The menus should have been organised based on various factors of each part. I think that it would be easier to navigate the menus based on the effectiveness or cost of each part. Strangely enough, whenever you customize a vehicle aesthetically. The game’s method for picking aesthetics is radically different to that of car parts. As the game does show you the result of what the paint or the vinyl to be placed on the vehicle will look like. There is also not as much messing around in navigating through these menus.
Another thing that I dislike is the atmosphere of the cities in game. This game offers 3 different cities to play all of which exist in the real world. The cities featured in the game being Philadelphia, Miami and Los Angeles. However they look nothing like their real world counterpart. The cities aren’t unrealistic enough to do anything remotely creative with it. Consequently the environments themselves are mundane and uninspired. The main flaw is that they are too alike with no differences to separate them. This is bad because each city could have been distinguishable from each other with many differences between them. Whether it is having different environments or including landmarks that are in the cities in game.
Outside of the campaign mode there is an arcade mode where you get different modes to play on. The modes being single races, competing in various time trials, checkpoint runs through any of the cities. You can even a take part in a series of different races one after another. There is also a split screen multiplayer which you race against each other on a track. Whilst it might of interest but it isn’t really going to hold your interest for too long.
Overall I can’t recommend Street Racing Syndicate as it is a very basic game with little to no charm. Inevitably there are significantly better games within the genre that are better use of your time. The only time I would even recommend this is when it is on sale on steam. Then I would only recommend this game for playing on a rainy day. Outside of the aforementioned purpose this game isn’t worth playing on.
