For the ill-informed, the import scene has taken off in recent years after the success of The Fast and the Furious at the box office, but this wasn't the start of the trend in America. Teenagers have been driving around Honda Civics with primer colored back ends and mufflers that put foghorns and Oprah to shame. The rise of the genre in video games is relatively new, but like any other genre, after one successful game sets off positive reviews, other publishers will follow. Its no secret that EA's NFS: Underground is the competitor to beat in the emerging class of racing games as the rain soaked streets provided plenty of action in the classic Need for Speed formula.

Street Racing Syndicate comes to the table boasting a high variety of officially licensed parts, licensed cars, and girlfriends for you to win and ogle over (but more on that later). SRS, available for PS2, Xbox, and GCN, at its core, is a solid, albeit, slightly above average, racing game. To start things off you are entered into a race to win money to buy your own ride and bail a friend of a friend out of jail. After you win you can select from a few of the stock vehicles and drive around the city looking for events and opponents. Win a couple of racings, build some respect points, earn some money and take the car into the garage for some fine tuning.

Namco managed to secure a cache of licensed parts and manufactures to include their products in the game. In addition to replacing parts, you can also modify your car's exterior with vinyl, stickers, neon, and body kits to make your ride the best looking in town. While in the garage you can also enter the Dyno to test your new parts and performance. What to see how much that new kit is going to change horsepower; this is the place to do it. Gear heads will certainly like SRS's garage as the shear amount of part to add to your car (including tires, nitrous, turbos, and brakes, just to name a few) will keep you busy for a while. This is definitely where SRS has its high point, but now its time to take that bad boy on the road, and this is where the game begins to stumble.

Controls are actually very responsive with your car handling and drifting with ease around corners after you get the hang of it. Controls are also mapped out very simply, if you choose to go with automatic transmission, and with the first sets of races being dramatically easy, beginners will be able to jump right in without the learning curve and frustration that can sometimes overwhelm. SRS plays out in an open-ended city allowing you to drive to your next race and destination at your convenience. Want to explore a bit, it is simply done here. When new races appear, usually indicated by a pop-up on the screen, you can choose to drive to the destination yourself, or jump right there at the push of a button. This feature is a worthy addition to the game, allowing gamers to play for a short amount of time and not spending five minutes going from place to place. Although, while driving you can come upon other tuners who are willing to race. If you come up behind them and flash your high-beams, they will challenge you to a duel, usually for money.

Besides these pick up races you can also take part in sanctioned races, where you race a series of races in a sanctioned environment, usually one large track that is modified for each race. To earn respect, the second biggest thing to money, and the key factor in accepting races and winning girls, you can race in respect challenges where the winner is awarded a certain amount of respect points, as well as money if you decide to place wagers before each event. Those respect points meet entrance requirements for further events. Fans of NFS: Underground who didn't like being stuck in perpetual darkness for the entire duration of the game will be happy to know that SRS features day-time races which is a welcome change to the rain-soaked roads of EA's game.

If you choose to ignore the Street Mode, you can also pick up a Quick Race, which is exactly what it sounds like. The game also offers a few multiplayer mode, like Collection Races where the first racer to collect a certain amount of tokens wins the race.

One of the most highly touted "additions" to SRS is the inclusion of a number of women to "win" in races where you are challenged to impress them in order to "hook-up" in the warehouse. Yes, your female companions are stored in a warehouse, how classy is that? Once you win these women, you also open up videos of them dancing to the game's generic techno/rock soundtrack which fails to impress. The inclusion of the girl's is a noble effort to try and "spice" up the genre, but after unlocking a few of these beautiful babes it sets in that this might be one of the weirdest additions to a racing game in a long time and you just feel a bit dirty watching near-exotic dances from your console of choice.

Unfortunately, the inclusion of the buxom babes isn't SRS's biggest problem, no, that honor goes to the game's engine itself which never relays the sense of speed you would expect from a game such as this. Sure, reviewing EA's Burnout 3: Takedown and SRS in tandem might have spoiled me with the former's unrivaled sense of speed, but SRS never takes off in the acceleration department. Even with your nitrous activated you never really feel like you are going over 60 miles per hour. While driving like a snowbird you will have a chance to take in the sights, and notice that SRS doesn't disappoint in the graphics department, but it doesn't excel either. The neon lit city of Miami as well as Philadelphia and LA look good, but you won't be impressed when the game is put side by side with, again, EA's Underground. I try not to compare the two titles, but they are essentially the same game that veered off into different directions, each bringing something different to the table.

Lastly, while the game does feature damage modeling, it never seems to hinder your performance all that much. Maybe, coupled with the game's lack of speed, you fail to notice it, but after countless "hurtful" crashes I was still leading the race and pulling ahead of my opponents.

Namco's entry into the import tuner field is a flawed, yet fun racer that will satisfy those who lack the funds to pick up a Prelude and do it themselves. If you can put up with some of the questionable game design decisions and a lack of speed provided by the engine you will find a nice little racer that can provide a diversion until you pick up EA's NFS: Underground 2 or Rockstar's upcoming Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition.