Amidst the sea of racing games the newest craze involves taking your ride to the street and tricking it out. This is a fad that was undoubtedly created by Fast and the Furious, though one that I have to admit I'm getting tired of. At first the idea was kind of cool, but as the years go on haven't we gotten over this yet? For whatever reason though the genre seems to be going on strongly despite the overall tepid results for most of these games.

When I heard about Street Supremacy I almost had hope for the game. First of all it was being published by Konami. Their foray into the racing genre proved to be semi-decent with Enthusia for the PlayStation 2. Second of all Genki was the development team. Their previous works include the Tokyo Xtreme Racer series which has had a few mediocre iterations but proves that they are not new to the racing genre. Unfortunately none of the pieces seem to fall into place for Street Supremacy and what we are left with is one of the most underwhelming experiences on the PSP.

Gameplay:

Goodness me, where to begin? Well, I suppose I should start with the racing elements because after all that's why you're here; to race.

When I first got behind the wheel in Street Supremacy; after wading through an endless barrage of menus and loading screens (I'll get to that later), I was greeted with one of the slowest and mostly poorly designed racing games ever. From the very beginning to the very end your biggest challenge is simply controlling your vehicle. Sure all of the basics are here from gas and breaking to gear shifting and nitro, but everything else is pretty bad.

Regardless of the fact that this is a racing game with no sense of speed, there is absolutely no excitement or "real" challenge. The only difficult thing about Street Supremacy is trying to maneuver your tugboat around turns (or slight angles for that matter). I can honestly say that no matter how hard I tried I hit the wall about 90% of the time no matter how prepared I was for the corner. It's absolutely ridiculous how difficult it is to control your car, but once you add in the factor of traffic in front of you and a jerk on your butt it gets a little frustrating. Oh, and as far as that sense of speed thing goes? Grandma in the produce isle could push her shopping cart faster than these "vehicles" move.

Since the races themselves usually last under a minute or so there isn't a lot of involvement to worry about on the track, or street as it were. Most of the stages are barren enough that it's baffling to think that a metropolis like Tokyo would have such empty streets. This all leads to a feeling of boredom as you come to terms with the fact that there is literally nothing going on in the game.

So the races themselves are very poorly designed and implemented, but what about the rest of the game? There is a turf ranking system thing that keeps track of your racing experience and gives you the ability to take over rival sections. While you begin by building a reputation among your gang you'll eventually take your posse out to overthrow nearby teams. The goal here is to obviously get as large an area as possible and as you slowly beat your way through your opponents their power will falter. It's an interesting concept but sadly nowhere near enough to save the game from drowning itself with terrible control.

Another aspect that is included is the ability to tune your car. This is an area that certainly isn't new to the street racing genre, but it comes across as so generic in Street Supremacy that it's almost embarrassing. Parts are acquired through the gain of funds and can thus be applied to your ride. The only problem here is that the results are minimal. It takes a HUGE investment in order to make your car "better" by the game's standards, though to be fair I am using that term loosely. There are far better tuning racers out on the market. Unfortunately though I don't believe there are any on the PSP yet.

It's also worth mentioning that the multiplayer in Street Supremacy doesn't work. Sure you can get to the point where you start a race with a buddy but once you hit that hurdle it all goes to hell. The game doesn't match any of the data correctly and seemingly makes stuff up as it goes along. You can just chalk it up as another element of this game that is broken and another reason not to play it. This is about as messy and uninspired as a game can get and is really a shame coming from a publisher like Konami.

Graphics:

Dull, drab, and lifeless are the best ways to describe Street Supremacy. There is nothing flashy about this game what so ever. Car models are generic and lack detail, the environments are sparse and poorly textured, and on screen "traffic" is limited to a couple of cars at most. There are a couple of nice graphical effects tossed in for good measure here and there, but they really aren't anything special. Some of the menus are nicely presented which is good because you'll be slogging through them in between races. There are a lot of load screens in the way too. Overall you'll probably spend more time in menus and waiting to race than actually hitting the streets with you car.

Audio:

The hum of the engine, the screech of the tires, and techno music that will nearly make your ears bleed is included here. Everything in the sound department is just about as generic as the visual nature of the game. This is one game where I didn't feel the need to use my PSP headphones for because the audio was just as poor one way or the other. The volume control is your friend.

Conclusion:

I always try to give an underdeveloped game a fair shot. Like maybe the game had potential at some point or maybe it just made a bad first impression. Unfortunately Street Supremacy never really had any potential and it went from bad impression to worse. Everything about the game screams generic from the lackluster visuals to terrible sound and even worse controls. This is a skipper if there ever was one.