I was psyched when I originally heard that Midway was publishing a new Rush game. For those of you who may not have remembered the franchise from the days of the arcade and earlier generation consoles, Rush was a crazy racing game with a lot of high flying jumps and a great sense of speed. The original game came out in 1997 in the form of San Francisco Rush and a year later Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA was released to offer fans some more of everything the series offered. The last time we heard about the series though it had jumped forward in time and got all futuristic with San Francisco Rush 2049. Since then though, nothing has been heard from the franchise until now.

L.A. Rush, however, has nothing to do with its brethren and frankly tries way too hard to attract new, younger gamers. As with everything these days, the franchise has been turned ghetto with a lot of hip hop, bling-bling and pimped out vehicles. I understand that it's part of the culture these days, but does every game series have to cater to this fad? Rush used to be something fun, something special and more importantly, unique. This game is none of those things.

Previous Rush games have never really wasted time by trying to tell a story, instead they tossed you right into the action. Unfortunately the newest version tries to tell a tale complete with cut scenes that are definitely skip-worthy. Basically, you play as a guy that had some of his cars stolen and in order to get them back you have to hit the streets to race Fast and Furious style and win your goods back. To make matters worse the entire set up of the game has been changed and frankly it feels like an attempt to emulate several titles on the market today.

Gameplay:

Sure the "basic" idea of L.A. Rush is to get out and win some races to collect some winnings, but it's how you go about it that has changed completely. In the main Story Mode the cityscape and exploration is set up a lot like the Grand Theft Auto series. That means you have to pay attention to your map and locate the next race icon. Then you have to drive your way to that spot by going through traffic patterns, avoiding cops and navigating the twisty roads of L.A. When you get close to the mark you'll also see a pillar of light incase you are too blind to look at the map.

Another addition that makes the series feel more like a GTA racing game is the addition of cop cars and a wanted meter. The more bad things you do or the more people you hit you'll eventually have the fuzz on your tail. They are some poorly crafted AI drivers though and tend to be aggressive racers with sirens instead of a real threat. What's worse is that if you have an accident or get away from them for enough time, their interest in you drops completely. Basically the most threatening thing that they can do to you is tailgate your vehicle and yell at you over their speaker. You have to really screw up in order to get the police's attention too. I drove by a cop going 85 through a red light on the wrong side of the road and my wanted meter never budged an inch.

The addition of police and the inclusion of street racing makes this game feel more like a Need for Speed rip off than a next generation Rush title. It's disappointing to say the least, but not nearly as bad as the Burnout-like crash scenes. No matter who you are, no matter how good you are, you will crash uncontrollably thanks to poorly programmed obstacles and too much traffic. What happens then is a rather lengthy slow motion cut scene of your uninspired collision that you can't skip and just sit there to watch. At least in Burnout you can control the flow of the crash and maneuver your car around during the sequence.

These crashes spill over into the simplistic racing and turn it from a true test of speed into an irritating obstacle course. Speeding through the streets of L.A. could have been fun if it was handled properly, but the "Rush" aspect of this game has been cut down significantly. It's so hard to tell what's going to cause your vehicle to explode if you touch it, but usually your best bet is to stay off of the road. Oh, and for the love of God, don't use the Nitro boost. That's just asking for trouble.

Fortunately, you don't have to suffer through Story Mode as the only playable feature in the game. Quick Race is a great way to get right into the racing, but it still has its fair share of problems. The same can be said for the multiplayer, which unfortunately doesn't support any online play. Either way you look at it, this game feels too much like a clone trying to emulate what's "popular" on the market today. I hope that the Rush franchise isn't gone for good, but seriously, keep MTV out of the series and go back to making fun racing games without all of the "me too" attitude and changing concepts.

Graphics:

These car models are shiny, really, really shiny. That's probably the best feature that L.A. Rush has going for it because apart from that there isn't much of a "wow factor". The actual cars themselves are pretty poor collections of polygons and lack the detail that other series have. This is especially evident when you crash or take damage, because they really don't look all that realistic. The digital rebuild of L.A. is nice enough with a lot of easily recognizable landmarks and such, but you can only expect so much with a graphics engine like this. I encountered some framerate issues on occasion and there is a bunch of time to be wasted waiting for things to load.

Audio:

I'm going to come right out and say it; I don't like hip hop. I never have and I don't believe that I ever will, but I always keep an open mind and have actually accepted many soundtracks that use this style of music. Unfortunately L.A. Rush does not offer one of those soundtracks. The music here is pretty bad, even when you compare it to other games with the same style (of which there are many). Fortunately the voice acting is decent enough, though it's really nothing that will blow your socks off.

Conclusion:

If I sound like I'm disappointed with L.A. Rush, then my review conveys exactly how I feel. I so wanted to relive the golden days of the Rush franchise, but instead I was trapped in a Need for Speed/Burnout/Midnight Club rip off with a little bit of GTA-flare tossed into the mix. The racing may be straight forward arcade fun, but constant crashes, too much traffic and Story Mode exploring really take things down a few notches. The graphics aren't all that great and the soundtrack isn't very good either, so aesthetically there's a lot of left to be desired. There are too many street racing clones out on the market today and with all of the flaws that this game has, it'll just get swept under the rug and forgotten about. Skip It