L.A. Street Racing


L.A. Street Racing is a racing video game, developed by Invictus Games and published by Groove Games exclusively for Microsoft Windows. It was released on 1 December 2006 in Europe and on 28 May 2007 in North America. The game was re-released in June 2008 by City Interactive under the title Overspeed: High Performance Street Racing, as a low-price game.

Plot

Matt Peacock is the best race driver in the underground of L.A. and you want to take that title away from him. But of course the best of the best does not race a newcomer so you have got to race your way up starting from place 61.

Gameplay

At the beginning of the game you choose one of two available cars, before waiting at the "COOL-Market" for contestants to arrive. Once someone willing to race comes by, you are given a choice of tuning parts from your opponent that you can race for. Before every race you are required to bet at least one of your own items, and since you cannot save the game manually, losing a part means that you have got to earn it again.
Every part of your car can be enhanced in several stages and once you have collected all parts of the same stage, you can do a "pinkslip race", in which the opponent bets his car. Losing that race will cost every single tuning part you have collected for your car. The parts you win are limited to the car you win them with, so you cannot swap them between cars. If you put parts of different stages on your car, the handling will decrease, so you need to decide if it is wise to get the power of the tier 3 engine, if this makes the handling of the car much worse.
The ranking list is divided into four prestige levels, with every level having its own starting location. For instance, if you go to the Village Motel, you need prestige level 4 to race or otherwise they will send you away. The same thing happens when you are level 2 and you wait at the COOL-Market because you are too powerful for them.
The races themselves take place on marked-off streets in Los Angeles at night. The cars handle more realistically than the ones in , which means that you cannot "fly" through curves by taking the foot from the acceleration for a second. You need to consider, for instance, that the back drifts into the scenery if you take the curve too steep. If certain parts of the race track are driven without a mistake, a small nitro refill is granted.
L.A. Street Racing features an online mode where players can drive against up to seven other opponents.

Reception

gave the game a score of 6.5 out of 10, stating, "The framework for a very cool racing game is here, and certainly the driving physics are superb. Yet so much of it seems incomplete or untested. The AI needs polishing, and the upgrade system is promising yet flawed. Still, at its reduced price point, LA Street Racing is an interesting, thrilling option."