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Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights - Interview

Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights - Interview

YouGamers: When you talk about underground races, well, mind goes to... err, Underground. And the Need for Speed Series. And Project Gotham. And Test Drive Unlimited. And tons of other crappy games. Well, actually the garage seems to be pretty crowded. How will J2 stand out?

Clarkson: Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights isn't an underground game - far from it. Hot Import Nights events are outstanding, well organized shows. We take the event and then transport it to a major city where we close down the streets and set up spectacular races to draw in the crowds. The incorporation of Hot Import Nights and the game is flawless - from the realistic drifting, having tons of customization options, the circuit tracks and locations, etc. The whole atmosphere pure street racing.

YouGames: The first Juiced was based on fictional locations. Where are the J2's races located? Did you recreate exact versions of the cities where we'll be running or just something that resembles the aforementioned cities?

Clarkson: There are seven locations in the game including London, Paris, San Francisco, Sydney and Rome! All are taken from real locations and the track layouts are based on the correct road maps, with a few tweaks in the game to make driving through them more fun. We've made full use of the famous landmarks in each of the cities too. Just wait till you try drifting around the inside of the Coliseum, it's awesome (you bet I'm looking forward to it - CT)!

YouGamers: The driving model is arcade, of course, and I'm pretty sure no one playing a Juiced game (not me, guaranteed!) wants to deal with a GTR clone. What can you tell us about the handling of the car, and how the tuning options will affect the whole driving model? And what about the damage system?

Clarkson: We decided to go for a more arcade style of driving model. We want players to enjoy playing the game and not get frustrated by it. The idea is for players to feel like they're a good driver and get a real buzz from the experience - Sega Rally proved a real inspiration in helping us achieve this. Each car handles in its own unique way and the tuning options help increase performance by increasing not only the performance but also the handling and weight of each vehicle. Effectively you can take an entry level vehicle and tune it to a level that would allow it to compete on an equal footing against far more exotic cars.

One of the problems with the first game was the way in which a player ended up spending all their money on repairing the car for the next race. We've addressed this by having the cars automatically repaired at the end of each race. Cars will still get damaged during a race but the player is penalised enough by not having won a race, and we just wanted to have players not worry about having to repair their car. We want gamers to be on the tracks as much as possible with the only time spent in the garage being used to customize their dream ride.

YouGamers: Why did you decide to drop the drag mode?

Clarkson: We definitely listened to the players' feedback from the first game, and the drag mode didn't have too many fans. So we decided to concentrate on other areas. The real winner is definitely the drifting modes. Players will soon discover that drifting is a real art form, and we worked with HIN to ensure drifting feels realistic and fun, just like how you'd feel in a real drift car. It's tough to start with but accomplished drivers will soon start getting huge scores, one of the guys in the office racked up over 500 million points - beat that!

YouGamers: Let's get down to rides: how many of them? Can you provide us a list (please please please! Even partial! ^_^) of the dream cars we will be racing on?

Clarkson: There are ninety cars in the game from a number of different categories. There are the Japanese imports, European models, American muscle cars and left-field supercars. The idea is to give players cars that they may well own and let them customize and tune them to a level that will allow them to compete against more exotic cars. My personal favorite for drifting is the 1986 Toyota Treno AE86, for circuit racing I like the Nissan Skyline R35 GT-R and I think the coolest exotic car is the Melling Hellcat - it's a beast!

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