Pros: Spooking opponents is great, Driver DNA is a nice touch
Cons: Otherwise the game is really generic and last-gen visually
The bottom line: I could have said Vin Diesel fan club, but really, you can't diss the Vin.
Though the whole Fast & the Furious motif is long gone, someone forgot to tell THQ and Juiced Games. The original Juiced was a decent game with some decent ideas, but nothing that truly warranted a sequel though it did have some promise. Yet here we are, with a new Juiced game, whether we like it or not (though looking back I did hope there was one even though I figured it wouldn't happen). Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights certainly is an improvement over the original game, with easier progression alongside tons of cars and events, and a few neat twists to the racing action, but at the same time, it just doesn't feel all that exciting most of the time, and worse yet, feels like a high-definition port from the PS2 version. With superior racing games on PS3 such as Ridge Racer 7, DIRT, Burnout Paradise, and even the two Need for Speed games, there's no reason to play Juiced 2 unless you're really into the tuner scene still or have already played the previously mentioned games...and even then you're probably better off replaying one of those.

Illegal street racing...done legally
Juiced 2's career mode is actually considered a legal racing league, dubbed Hot Import Nights. After spending a couple minutes creating a character – and that's all the time you'll spend, since the character creation is incredibly weak – you can enter the league and start climbing up the charts. In the original Juiced, the progression was based on complex “respect” systems that meant a very slow grind, but this time around you can enter any event in whatever league you've made it up to. Each league has goals to accomplish which pave the way to upgrading; they're usually based on winning events or screwing around with opponents through the cool “spook” system. Races range from basic circuit events, knockouts, and various drifting challenges, such as a drift chain event where you must get a specific score without ever ending your drift. Through progression more events start popping up, like endurance races and pink slip events, where you gamble your car against an opponent's ride. There's also an online version of the career mode, but it really doesn't matter since absolutely nobody is on playing it anymore, if there ever was anyone.

Juiced made a splash with its gambling mechanic, where you had to make a bet with a rival, and if you placed higher than them in the race, you won the pot. It's back in Juiced 2, though it doesn't seem quite as important. You still have to do it, or lose money backing out, but usually it can be dealt with. Pink slip races bring in the same mechanic, where beating them in a race earns you their car...and if you lose, yours is gone. As a matter of fact, if you even reset the game or return to the XMB, the car is gone. So beware, the game knows that you like to reset when things go your way. I'll now light myself ablaze for doing it. Some of the goals set up to progress up the league ladders involve making and winning bets, as well as winning pink slip races. You can also set up a spectator bet, and just watch the action, but really...that's pretty lame. I'd rather go to one of the betting places in San Andreas and watch the horses over watching a bunch of posers racing cars.

...Spooky
The racing action is fairly by-the-book. There's a decent balance between arcade style antics and serious simulation, as seen by the in-depth damage modeling with flying parts everywhere if you crash too much, along with an in-depth upgrading system that requires you to win events in order to actually get the ability to buy upgrades. What's neat is your skills improve as you play, using the Driver DNA. As you race, you'll earn “experience” for good cornering, using nitrous, powersliding, drifting, gambling, etc. As these skills improve, you'll see your driving ability increase, which is good because initially many cars handle terribly. Think of it as a page taken from an RPG and it all makes sense. Also new is the ability to “spook” rivals by tailgating them. This isn't totally new...I first saw it in some terrible budget PS2 racing game, but it's still a fresh concept. Basically, if you can get into their draft and stay there, a little meter pops up, and if it goes full, they'll panic and wipe out, allowing you to pass them. There's really an event dedicated to mastering the spook; Last Man Standing events are impossible unless you learn how to effectively spook opponents.

Juiced 2 isn't a particularly challenging game, but it's not easy either. The usual rubberband AI returns, though it does work well. Sure it means you can never blow opponents away if you're way better, but it also means if you screw up or aren't as good, it's not that tough to get back into the fray. The AI otherwise is fairly aggressive in their attempts to pass, though they can't spook you into a mistake, which would have been pretty cool. I did notice that the individual you placed a bet with will get a bit of a bump in ability since they almost always finish second if you win a race. They must be motivated with money on the line. The drifting events are almost always more difficult than basic races, at least the Drift King and Chain Drift ones, which can be hampered by accidentally hitting walls and unrealistically high scores from rivals. At first look the small amount of leagues makes the game look short...but in reality they get more and more packed with events as you go alone.

What really hampers Juiced 2 is that though it does some new things, it still feels ordinary. The whole tuner scene is so tired now, and has been done better in other games, so getting excited for yet another one of these cheesy games is tough. The sense of speed is minimal and the car selection is a cliché on a Blu-Ray disc. They make a big deal about the rivals and their abilities and such, but they're all generic caricatures. It's nice to see them actually go about making the whole thing seem legal and official, but it only adds to the phony atmosphere of street racing. If you're really huge into that sort of thing, you might like Juiced 2, but if not, the game will be tiring to play and progress through, which is unfortunate because they did make a lot of strides with this game. If Juiced Games were to make a different kind of racing game using what they've learned...they could make something pretty special. But this tried-and-true “underground” racing thing is just too old and busted to be meaningful. When EA realized it, that's a sign to move on.

If the PS2 did HD
Juiced 2's visuals do about one thing right – the cars look great. But everything else, well...it looks like a 720p PS2 game, which tends to happen when a PS2 version of the game is shoehorned out the door instead of making a fully next-generation experience. The character models of rivals are ripped right out of 2002, and though it means little in a racing game, if you're going to put them at the forefront, spend time making them look good. I mean really, they have these ugly as hell dancing girls on the podium, contrasting how much money they wasted hiring models for still pictures on the event screens. The various courses which take place all around the world are well designed, but jaggy looking and while proficient in terms of offering challenge, they don't have much unique spark. As I already mentioned, the sense of speed is poor; even when hitting the nitrous things go by at a slow pace. The framerate usually stays strong, but when a lot of cars hit the screen at once there can be some slowdown.

The audio features some sparse voice acting, at the pink slip/gambling screen and during races. They'll hoot and holler when passing you, or damn you when you spook them and they hit the wall. So that's pretty nice. As bonus points, they're not annoying as hell like the rivals from Need for Speed Carbon, which used a similar tactic. The sound effects are basic, familiar engine noise and skidding tires, along with the nitrous going off...though on a few occasions the nitrous would trigger but there'd be no effect matching the trigger. The soundtrack is extremely repetitive and generic...I think I recognized one song, a Queens of the Stone Age tune. How they got that in there but yet offer hours upon hours of generic techno and other crappy stuff is a question I can't answer. And because the game doesn't offer custom soundtracks using the PS3 playlist feature, you're stuck with it. Sigh.

The Closing Argument
Juiced 2 would have been a hit in perhaps 2003, when the whole NFS Underground thing took off. Today, where that scene is pretty much dead and buried, it seems old and tired, even though clearly the game improves on the original in nearly every way. But at this point, it's too little, too late, even on PlayStation 3, which only has a select few top-tier racing games right now. The whole “spook” thing should be copied by almost everyone doing “amateur” racing, and the Driver DNA offers added depth to a genre that sometimes lacks innovation of any kind. It's just too bad it was this game that offered it, as when you take them away, you get something even more generic. At this point Juiced 2 is in the bargain bin, and because THQ put the stake through the heart of the franchise recently, there won't be another Juiced. So if you really want a new underground-style racer, this one can be found for cheap, but if you really want a street racing game in this vein, Need for Speed Carbon can still be found and though it too isn't truly “great”, it's definitely a step up from this very ordinary racing game.