Ever Since Need for Speed Underground was a huge success with car customization and tuning everyone that was able to get their hands on licenses for cars started making a racing game with customization and tuning. However not all games were as great as need for speed underground, and now not even Need for Speed carbon is not as good as Underground. Import Tuner Challenge, another racing, customize and tuning game doesn?t even come close to Need for Speed Underground.

??????????????? ITC just like any other game has many cars all mainly from Japan such as Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota and many others. Sorry Honda Lovers no Hondas here. Because of the small list of car licenses this games does not have much to offer in the form of cars. However you can customize any car with over 5 million in game combinations. This barely makes up for the fact that there aren?t that many cars to begin with.

??????????????? When customizing cars there is one thing to keep in mind. For every part you add you must do some type of fine tuning to the wheels or other parts of the car because even the slightest miscalculation from either the wheels or the engine can cause you to loose a race. Doing this can be frustrating because you are wasting time trying to get it right and if you don?t know how to save your game and start over, that can get you really angry. Unlike most games that feature auto save ITC has you go back to the main menu into settings and Save Data just like the racing games from the good old days.

??????????????? Genki the creators of ITC must be the masterminds behind the Tokyo Xtreme Racing Series because they borrow elements from that series and added them here. Come to think of it, it is some what the same as TXR. Free Roaming includes driving around in circles in 3 massive highways going from left to right or right to left. To start a race you either drive in to a certain place and challenge racers or just flash your lights to another racer to start a race for money.

??????????????? When racing you?ll notice that there are no finish lines. In order for you to win the race you must leave your opponent behind enough that they will start to loose SP. As soon as their SP reaches 0 the race is over and he winner is whoever has some SP left. You can loose SP by either crashing into cars, crashing into something or being left behind by your opponent and Vice Versa. If you trade paint with your opponent you will both loose SP at the same time so you must do some time of maneuver to make him loose control and win the race.

??????????????? Controlling the cars is a bit difficult and could take time getting used to it. The cars are way too loose and while driving you can?t look side to side. If you want to look back you have to click the Right Thumb Stick which can cause you to most of the time loose your concentration. Not to mention that the game does not support the rumble feature. This game would have probably been better suited for the PS3.

??????????????? I can?t really complain about the graphics and Visuals of the game but then again this is the Xbox 360 and I really couldn?t expect anything less from it. The cars are highly detailed and you can see each and every single part you add to the engine. The environment and courses are based on real Japanese locations but at this time I cannot confirm that because I have not been to Japan yet, and no the Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift does not count.

??????????????? Music can?t get any worse than what this game has to offer. That?s why its always good to turn down their soundtrack and turn up your soundtrack. Sound effects are OK they feature real sound engine and real crash sound when you crash into something. There is no voice over and when you meet someone all you will get to see is a shadow and letters making this game even more boring than it already is.

??????????????? The game features 200 Rival Street teams and you must defeat all of them in order to gain cash to buy new rides and parts and to gain respect in the streets. Virtually that is not in real life. Online Multiplayer only supports 2 players only which defeat?s the purpose of Xbox live which can support many more players than that.

Closing Comments:
??????????????? ITC falls way short of an entertaining racing game. It would be a lot better if they got rid of the ?Free Roam? and just went on to do track by track racing. I regret buying the game and recommend that you rent it first before you have buyers remorse like I do right now. ITC is one of those games that takes one step forward into the Next Gen car racing games but takes many steps back.

Game Play: Boring and Uninteresting. 4/10

Controls: Loose but can be customized with no rumble feature. 6/10

Sound: Bad Music, OK sound effect but not enough. 2/10

Graphics: Highly detailed cars, tracks and parts. 8/10

Life Span: Over 200 rival gangs will keep you entertained for weeks to come. Don?t bother with online racing. 7/10







NightHawk: Console-Central Network