Juiced ‘Show-Off’ Mode Revealed News

Acclaim today sent us details on its forthcoming multi-format racer Juiced, the latest title in the popular racing genre that allows players to buy their cars and mod them to their own style.

Featured within Juiced is a unique mode dubbed the â??Show-Offâ? event, in which players are pitted against a clock and have to pull off classy manoeuvres to impress the crowd.

The mode is also incorporated into the Online Career mode, granting gamers the chance to go head-to-head against six other gamers and battle it out for the most points.

The unique physics system behind Juiced allows players to pull off a huge range of moves, ranging from U-turns to J-Turns, donuts and a variety of other motorised madness. In total the game features nine distinctive moves to master, whilst the trick comes from linking these to boost your score considerably â?“ however be warned as one mistake will wipe all of your hard earned points.

Naturally how well you perform is based on the players skill, however how you mod your car also plays an important aspect; for example, a four wheel drive Skyline kitted out with rock-solid suspension, full spoilers and the most expensive tires is probably not your best choice for drifting or pulling donuts. On the other hand, an old Nissan 300 ZX with rear wheel drive, up-rated power and a short ratio gear-box is just right.

Because it takes skill to master the moves, itâ??s quite easy to damage your vehicle getting it right, so itâ??s best to start off in something thatâ??s not too expensive to repair. Once you feel confident, itâ??s time to start taking your better cars out on the streets. The more â??Juicedâ?? your ride, the more respect youâ??ll earn in certain parts of town. Where you perform is key too. Some areas of the City are better suited to show-offs than others and only by gaining enough respect to enter any neighbourhood will you get to see all the streets. And if you get it wrong, the crowd lets you know, heckling you and taunting you on poor performance.

The fine control of the manoeuvres requires very careful balancing between throttle and brakes. Drifting is a good example, where you approach the bend and decelerate, then flip the steering wheel to get the back end out while accelerating to get the drift going. In the case of a 360 degree turn itâ??s all about getting the timing right for braking and accelerating. If you donâ??t get the braking right, you wonâ??t have enough momentum to approach 180 degrees, and if you donâ??t accelerate at the right spot you wonâ??t pull the nose around to face the same direction as the one you started with. Getting it wrong in both cases will probably lead to damage because you need relatively high speed to execute a 360.

In the Career mode of Juiced, youâ??ll need to compete in â??Show-offsâ?? to gain enough respect to complete the game. And while itâ??s not racing, it will teach you dozens of useful tricks for getting out of trouble when you lose it on the track. Of course, hi-scores in the â??Show-offâ?? eventsâ?? are recorded and stored on-line if you have the right broadband connections. On both PS2 and Xbox, you donâ??t even have to be playing someone else to get your good results up on the global rankings. As long as you have an active online link, your scores are posted automatically.

Weâ??ll have more on Juiced soon.