Hands on with Juiced Eliminator

Mobile is well-served when it comes to moody night time street racing games. In recent months we've had I-play's The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift, and Gameloft's Asphalt: Urban GT 2 screeched onto our phones before that.

Both games were sequels (or, in Tokyo Drift's case a, erm, trequel), and the latest effort is another. Juiced Eliminator is the follow-up to Juiced, which came out last year and was, well, a bit of a duffer on mobile (read our review for why we thought this was the case).

Still, THQ Wireless has spent the last year creating the new game from scratch, although the core idea remains the same.

"You have to compete against night-time racing rivals, earning cash and respect, and upgrading or buying new cars in an attempt to receive the highest level of respect among your peers and be rated the number one street racer in the city," explains producer Darryl Shaw.

The game is darker and moodier than Juiced, with suitably gritty visuals. Another new feature is the inclusion of non-racing traffic on the roads, as well as obstacles such as lamp-posts and level crossings – all of which you have to avoid at high-speed.

But that's just the start of the new features that have been squeezed into Juiced Eliminator.

"There's 3D visual effects on the environments, improved handling on corners, we've randomised the race routes for variety, refined the upgrades, improved the AI and there's a much-improved physics model to give the game a bit more bite," says Shaw.

Another key change is the game's structure, which eschews the traditional menu-based approach in favour of something more open-ended.

"We've made it almost like a world or little city," reckons THQ Wireless' european marketing director James Scalpello. "The actual game doesn't function around menus, it functions around one very big track almost like a town. So you can drive around finding challenges at different points."

The game includes four usable cars in the Career mode, with another three available to drive in the Arcade mode. You can upgrade the cars in terms of their speed, acceleration, traction, brakes, body-kit and nitro ability, so you can properly pimp your ride to suit your driving style.

It's all looking much better than the original Juiced, so we'll be keeping our eyes peeled for the final version. And in case you're wondering, THQ Wireless is working on a fully 3D version for release later in the year, although you'll need a high-spec handset to play that.

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