187 Ride or Die – Review

It’s not too often Thumb Bandits get to review Ubisoft titles so it was a surprise to have this handed to me for review. Oh well these are the favors you do for your friends. I’m a bit of a GTA fanatic so this should be fun.

187 Ride or die is practically GTA, or it wants to be. It’s a driving title in similar vain to that of Need for Speed Underground franchise, with elements taken from numerous gaming titles, including the GTA franchise. The story is simple and revolves around ‘gangsters in da hood’ as they race to take over more and more turf. It all sounds a little cliché doesn’t it?

In Da Hood…
It’s all rather GTA San Andreas isn’t it? Oh look I’m in Los Santos, and there are Hispanic and black negative stereotypes aplenty, what game is this again? Now what you need to do in order to progress through the game is race other drivers, however you also have the option to blast the hell out of your opponents with various weapons. There is an ‘auto aim’ so it’s not completely abysmal, but I found I was not connecting that well with this title regardless of this addition and the fact you have to become 1st and not 1st, 2nd or 3rd to progress to the next level I found fairly frustrating. Not to mention the odd addition of what appear to be non moving vehicles placed at random parts of the track, there it would seem, for not other reason than to get in your way. Add to that the monotonous ‘gangster speak’ mo fo and you’re really left knowing that this is going to be a title for the young teen market even though it has a 16+ rating.

Game on!…
Gameplay is fairly shallow, sure this is more than just a driving, since you have the option to blast your way through, but this addition doesn’t save it given you know this is a depthless gaming experience. You also have arena play which is a sort of death match styled game in which you have to be the last man standing, wooppee. There’s also a pursuit game which was an interesting addition but all in all it just feels like it’s all been done before and better in other titles of this genre.

Visually…
It’s all been done before, ouch I just said that didn’t I, shame. There are a few nice little touches such as the slow motion explosions and interactive destructive environments, it all just feels a little overdone and samey. Graphically this PS2 version looked a little undercooked to me, or perhaps I’m too used to my PC gaming or Xbox. I didn’t notice any actual slow down, regardless of what was happening on screen though which was fairly impressive given some of the mayhem I managed to get into.

Audibly…
I’ve gotten to the stage now where I do expect any title with some form of ‘gangster’ format to of course come with the obligatory rap / hip hop soundtrack and needless to say I wasn’t disappointed here. Although this sort of hard core rap with a capital C does fit the overall theme as does the mother fookin language of the game, it all does become a little tiring. How much truly dire Gangsta talk can you cram into one game and badly? If this is a question that hangs in your mind, buy this title and see. It’s as though someone read the stereotyping of ebonics and gangsta speak and jotted some notes that’s fashizzle.

Girl Gaming…
What do you think? You start with a male character and the female characters are the hoochies and ho’s. There are a couple of unlockable female characters but see above for characterization because that’s what you’re in for. Ain’t it fab being a girl gamer? Cleavage and crap.

Summation…
Although I can see the developers have aimed for something different with this title it just felt completely unpolished and not up to the task of taking on the big guns like the Burnout franchise, Need for Speed franchise and most certainly not the GTA franchise. What you have here is an average attempt at a driving / shooting sim that loses it because of the fact it’s lacking the all important ‘make me play it one more time’ aspect. Add to this the fact it utilizes the completely overdone ‘racial stereotyping’ as well as the hoochie mama approach and sadly you’re left with an average effort that looks nice but still is in a word average. So with that in mind a 5 seems like the perfect score to give it.

Review by Amy