  Calling 'shotgun' takes on a whole new meaning in 187 Ride or Die. |
We all know Ubisoft can do stealth (Splinter Cell). It sure as heck can do first person shooters (Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon). But can it do racing?
'The Big U' (we just made that nickname up) has its own attempt at a successful racing game with 187 Ride or Die, a hybrid of Grand Theft Auto-style violence and mature content and Burnout-esque crashes.
'187' is a strictly in-car game, so don't expect to be jumping out of your vehicle like in GTA and beating people up. Each vehicle has a driver and a gunner and in the single player mode, it's up to you to play through several different game modes - so you're both driver and ass-capper. The gameplay is (thankfully) simple enough. You accelerate with the R-trigger, shoot forward with the X button and backward with the B button, and you can earn turbo power by drifting (a la Burnout), then use the accumulated turbo by pressing the A button. You can grab weapons either by simply driving over them or by causing another car to crash and grabbing that homey's gun. It's actually quite satisfying lining up your Uzi or shotgun and laying into an enemy vehicle and blowing it away.
The game modes that are actually quite fun, but it's much too easy to get distracted from the fun because of the swearing, racist lingo and a thoroughly silly and boring plot.
There's a basic race (you must place first to move on), Elimination (you still have to place first to advance, but at the end of each lap, whoever is in last place is automatically booted from the race), Escort (you have to protect a buddy from being destroyed by enemy vehicles), Bomb (ever watch the movie 'Speed?') and Po-Po Chase (the police are hell-bent on blowing you up so you have to reach a certain destination point before they do so). There are several more modes and all of them are simple and fun enough.
We won't get into too much of the single player's plot details simply because it's really not important, but we'll tell you that you'll basically be doing the same few game types repeatedly in the single player mode, with a story about street cred or money or something interwoven between each level. Every once in a while, a CG movie is shown where people get shot up and cars crash. Yay.
One big problem with this game is, if you're all by your lonesome and aren't connected to Xbox Live, you can't set up a game of your own. You can play through single player levels already completed, or play against another human (with or without bots), but you won't be able to set up a game with just you and computer controlled vehicles.
You can play all game modes on Xbox Live and as usual there is a lot of optimization possible. You can choose a Quick Match to jump right in, Optimatch to choose exactly what game mode you want to play, or Create Match so you can be the host and set all the rules.
Another big problem with 187 is the mature content. The game just reeks of trying to seem hip and cool. Every line is laced with crude language that would make Eminem blush. Of course there's absolutely nothing wrong with adult language and content in a game, but it should serve some kind of purpose and not be gratuitous for the sake of being gratuitous.
The developers of 187 Ride or Die definitely had the right idea. The game is easy to just pick up and play and has fun multiplayer modes. But the laughable plot, disgusting language and weak (very weak) single player mode keep this game from being great.
Peep that, sucka! We out!
