PSP Gets a Nitro Boost from The Fast & The Furious
by Louis Bedigian

“This is another example of what we think is cool about PSP: being able to share content.”

Last year Universal released the third addition to The Fast & The Furious franchise: Tokyo Drift. Shortly afterwards, Namco Bandai released the first game based on the movie trilogy. Developed for PlayStation 2, The Fast & The Furious was a racing / drifting game that dabbled in modern-day open-ended gameplay.

While another Furious flick has yet to be announced, the game series will continue this April with an upgraded port to the PSP.

“On the PSP version, one of the goals we had was to maintain what we had in the PS2 version and make sure that all of it came over intact,” said Mitch Boyer, Associate Producer. “Then add to that a lot of pick-up-and-play multiplayer modes that suit the PSP.”

The developers are well aware of the PSP’s spontaneous style. You could be at a bus stop, run into a friend, and have the urge to game right there. This level of motivation has pushed the developers to add new multiplayer content that was not previously available for PS2.

PSP is a pick-up-and-play, run-into-your-friend-and-have-a-quick-game kind of system. So we’ve added a few additional multiplayer modes to what you see in the PS2 version. We added a quick Drag Race mode.

“We’ve added a mode called Tag Battle, which references a scene from Too Fast, Too Furious,” Mitch notes. “There was a scene with two cars against two cars. They had a specific point that they had to drive to, flip a u-turn and cross a line before the second guy could go. We thought that would be a cool pick-up-and-play mode. It’s essentially a two-on-two relay. So we’ve got that in the game.”

He then told us about a new mode called Road Sweeper. “In the traditional drift battles, you race from the top to the bottom of a mountain. Whoever scores the most points wins. [Here] it works a little differently. We’ve divided all the corners into zones. So if one guy goes into a particular corner, whoever scored the most point has tagged the corner. At the bottom of the mountain, all tags are compared. That determines the winner [the player with the most tags]. So you can imagine when you get four guys drifting all at once it becomes pretty crazy.

“We’ve added a lot to the customization. I think it’s safe to say that the customization of the PS2 version was really extensive. We’ve added is… Before, you could spend [a lot] of time with the vinyl tool to make the car look exactly how you want it to look. But [after that] you really couldn’t do much with it. So we’ve added a way for you to share the experience wirelessly with other players.

“Lastly, because this is a licensed product with Universal, we’ve been provided a bit of behind-the-scenes content with the film.”

The tech specs of the PSP are considerably different from home consoles. How did this influence the game's development, and what can you say about the finished product -- physically (gameplay) and visually? Does it compare with the previous versions?

Mitch Boyer: We’ve spent a lot of time on this. You know the PSP hardware is pretty competent, but it’s not a PS2. So we’ve spent a lot of time making sure that we can keep something comparable on the PSP to what you see on the PS2. I’ll start with the gameplay aspect first.

The controls on the PSP are different from the PS2. On PS2 you have two analog sticks, which gives you a lot more control. When you’re drifting PS2, it’s easy to spin out if you give it too much gas. There’s a lot of finesse involved in doing it accurately. To be honest, that’s something that’s very difficult to replicate on the PSP.

So on the PSP [version] you’ve got a steeper learning curve. You’re either dealing with the thumb-nub, which is technically analog but is very touchy, or you’re dealing with the D-pad and buttons. So you lose a lot of the finesse that you have on the Dual-Shock [controller]. But once people get used to it on PSP, they’ll be able to drift as well as they did on PS2.

Visually we’ve also spent a lot of time making sure that we don’t compromise [any elements]. If you’ve seen a lot of racing games on PSP, you know that there are generally compromises that have to be made. [It’s hard] to carry over the look from PS2. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to minimize any reduction to the graphical quality so that you can compare them side-by-side. We’ve maintained all the camera, screen shake, and blur effects that were in the PS2 version. We think it comes across really strong as a PSP game that compares favorably to PS2.

Let's go into more detail about the most important aspect: the gameplay. If I'm a fan of racing games, and maybe The Fast & The Furious movie franchise, but NOT necessarily a fan of drift racing games, why should I proceed? Why should I be interested in this game?

MB: We thought of this from the beginning, even with the PS2 version. Drifting is a huge part of the film obviously. We divided the PS2 version into half [racing] and half [drifting]. The Fast & The Furious has the most expensive customization, particularly visually, of anything out there. We spent a considerable amount of time putting together the aftermarket customization in this game with real body kits and extensive vinyl tools, as well as customizable paint jobs going into any conceivable direction you could want. So even if you’re not into drifting, there’s plenty of racing to be had. There’s extensive customization. And of course the movie cars – you won’t find any of the cars from The Fast & The Furious in any title but this game.

Any new story details? Any new cars?

MB: The game is not really story-driven. When we first started working with Universal on this project, there were a lot of different ways we could have gone. You could have played as Sean Boswell and the game would follow the events of the movie, but Universal wanted to take it in a different direction. They just wanted to have a pure racing game that was set in the world of The Fast & The Furious. That being said, we have bios for all the racers that you race against, but there’s no overarching story like you’d find in the film.

On the question of any new cars, those of you who are familiar with the PS2 version may have noticed the conspicuous absence of Sean’s hybrid Mustang, the 67 Fastback GT. We did catch some heat for this when we released the PS2 version. Everybody was saying, “That’s the hero car from the movie – [why] can’t I drive it?”

We did this intentionally. We held it back for an exclusive in the PSP version.

What is the car lineup, old or new?

MB: We’ve managed to keep all the cars from the PS2 version in the PSP version. The licensing deal that we did extended to the PS2 and PSP, so these are all the same cars that are on the PS2 version. It wasn’t easy cramming that level of geometry and texture detail for every one of those cars and every one of their body kits in one UMD. That has been a challenge. But we’ve managed to put ‘em all in there.

Same thing with the soundtrack – all of the same tracks from the PS2 version: Japanese hip-hop, electronic, and rock tracks.

As for PSP’s specific bonuses, the PSP version is everything that gamers loved about the PS2 version in your pocket. We’ve been able to maintain everything that was in the PS2 version without compromising or losing anything while adding all these new multiplayer modes, and new [behind-the-scenes] assets directly from Universal.

And also, shared customization. There is a lot that can be done with the vinyl tool, particularly on PS2. Getting that functionality onto the PSP is nuts. It’s a very difficult thing to do. We’re pushing tons of layers of vinyls.

You know, some people want to spend the time using this tool, some people don’t. Some people just want cars that look awesome and they don’t want to put in the time [needed to make cool vinyls]. What do they do? They just don’t bother.

One of the things we’ve added to the PSP version is a full vinyl swap. Let’s say I’m here with [a friend]. He’s really great at making vinyls for the cars. [Now let’s say] I don’t have the time to make them, or don’t want to make them. Now I can wirelessly look through his cars when I join a game with him. I can say, “Man, that’s a sick-looking car. Can I have those vinyls?” If he agrees they’ll be sent to my PSP and they’ll be saved to my game. Then I can go into the single-player game and apply them to any car I want [regardless of the vehicles he has his vinyls applied to]. The game does all the work for you. The vinyls will match and line up perfectly.

We think this really lends itself to PSP-style gaming – that ability to share your customization with other players wirelessly. To my knowledge nobody has done that on PSP yet. Then we took it one step further. I have the opportunity to look at the cars of anyone I come in contact with, and request any of their cars. Maybe I want to get into drifting but I don’t know the appropriate settings. I don’t know what tires are good for drifting. I can hook up with [someone] who has a drift car, and with his permission, he can Wi-Fi it to me.

This is another example of what we think is cool about PSP: being able to share content.