The graphics in The Fast and the Furious are pretty much what you would expect; they're pretty and the car models and environment models look good, but there's nothing that makes the graphics in The Fast and the Furious stand out from the crowd.

Well, that is except for the customization engine. You can choose from a wide selection of real products from real companies, and the vinyl graphics that you can apply to your ride allow for up to 25 layers and allow you to skew, scale, position and rotate the various available vinyl graphics to get the look that you want. The one feature that will be sorely missed by car tweakers is the ability to create your own vinyl graphics from scratch. You can, however, do a lot with what they provide; in addition to a lot of company-specific vinyls that you would expect to see, you'll also get some letters, numbers and shapes that you can scale and layer to create a custom vinyl. Another thing to keep in mind is scale. You can often manipulate the scale and color of some of the existing vinyls to create a two-tone color scheme for your entire car by overlaying a single-colored vinyl over a large area of your vehicle's paint job. This allows for some cool effects, while only using up one or two vinyl layer "slots". Unfortunately, you can't modify any "prize" cars in the shops at all - not even just to change their appearance.

The music in The Fast and the Furious is a mix of hip-hop, rock, alternative and J-Pop. The J-Pop song used in the menus gets a bit old after you've been to the menus several times, but you're never there for too long at any given time. The other songs are pretty decent. They've got a nice beat and you can drive to them.

The sound effects seem to be fairly accurate, but irritating. If you've not been around one of these small, high-revving engines with blow-off valves and little to no sound dampening, this will be your first taste of the noises these machines can make. Mind you, I'm no lover of muscle cars, either; I prefer the growls and purrs of Italian and German engineering, but the irritating, repetitive "Clikkt!" sound of a compact sports car shifting very quickly through its gears is faithfully reproduced in The Fast and the Furious.

I really wanted to love this game. I enjoyed all of the The Fast and the Furious movies, and racing is one of my favorite game genres. However, despite the fact that The Fast and the Furious sports the tag line, "Speed needs no translation", it seems that somehow, something does get lost in the translation.

The game has its good points, but has an awkward feel to it at the same time. The Heads-Up Displays that are available have their strengths and weaknesses, but the techie one that shows the most data has a triangular mark in the center of the screen that seems to serve no purpose other than to get in the way of your seeing cars ahead of you until it's too late. Mind you, it is cool, as this is taken from the Pioneer Corporation's Pioneer Real-time Vehicle Dynamics Processor AVG-VDP1 - basically a head's up display for your car.

There are different types of races available, such as Drift Battles, Grip Battles, Destination Battles, Roll Up Races, Top Speed Battles and Grand Tour, and loading screens bear tips on what types of vehicles are best for various types of races. This would have been useful if my original jalopy didn't kick so much tail when I threw a few mods onto it. It seemed that with little effort, I could win several types of races. Drifting would be the exception, of course, but even that was fairly manageable with a bit of practice.

As you beat the various crews, you will win "prize" cars. These are the cars that have their own FMV intro when you gain the ability to go up against one. These cars are used by the crew Bosses, and beating the boss will put their car in your garage. One thing that I found disappointing was the fact that you can't modify these "prize" cars at all. It's almost like you've won the ability to use the car, but you don't actually own them.

When you buy your first car, you're likely to find that it under-performs and is hard to control. This is to be expected, I suppose, but was more challenging than I had expected. However, after a couple of wins and some well spent winnings, I found that my cheapo, crappy used car had become quite the sleeper, leaving Accords and Eclipses in the dust. The difficulty curve in The Fast and The Furious seems to be really easy most of the time and then, against certain rivals, darn near impossible.

The "impossible" races can be frustrating, indeed, and seem to result from a couple of things. One issue that can cause the odds to be stacked against you is choosing the wrong car for the race. The game and book give lots of tips on what types of cars are good for what types of races and you'll also want to make sure you've got the right tires for the job, as well. Using a car that's set up for drifting in a grip battle or vice versa will put you in a bad spot quick. The good news is that you can at least address these issues directly.

Another issue that is not so readily addressable is the rival who out-powers your car. This can be that muscle car that takes off at the line, leaving you in the dust or that car that seems to drift completely effortlessly. My advice when racing against one of these is to smack into them as much as possible. Knocking your opponent into a car or the wall will slow him down a bit and will cause him to lose control. In this way, it's effective in normal races and drift events, as well. There were a couple of races that I eventually got past using this trick.

A good bit of focus was place on the physics of racing in The Fast and The Furious. The different types of cars behave differently, depending on their weight distribution and where the power is routed. This is enhanced by the upgrade modifications allowed; upgrades to engine, exhaust, aspiration and braking are accurately simulated on the track.

Where The Fast and The Furious loses points, however, is in the category of game balancing. While the first races provide a challenge, the earnings that you get from winning a couple of races is enough to upgrade your car to a real street monster - and the better your car drives, the easier it is to win races. When you beat an entire crew, you are rewarded with a prize car (which you can't modify or spend money on) and crew stickers that will get you discounts on upgrades - which makes your money go even further.

The car decorating (paint shop) section of The Fast and The Furious is handled well, allowing for the selection of a color from a wide pallet of possibilities. Also, vinyl graphics can be added to any body panel of the car, with the ability to stack several layers of vinyl graphics to achieve the look you desire. Unfortunately, you can't create your own vinyl graphics from scratch. You can, however, use some basic shapes and lettering and numbering to create a one of a kind graphic for your cars.

The A.I. in The Fast and the Furious left something to be desired. Specifically, after a race is completed, when the computer takes over control of your car and continues to control the other car, it does rather strange things with them. Many times, my car would grind itself against a wall, take a sharp turn and smack into the opposite wall, my rival's car or other traffic, or turn around facing the wrong direction. What I would have expected would be for the car to simply keep driving. That would make sense, as the race took place on the biggest highway in Tokyo.

In the end, The Fast and the Furious was enjoyable, but I can't say that I loved it. The level to which the cars were customizable was nice and the control was reasonable, but several small things just kind of detracted from the overall entertainment level of the game. Little things, like the fact that in order to change the view in the game you have to go into the Options menu. Speaking as a gamer who plays a lot of racing games, I find that I use several different views in the course of playing a game - often in the same race. If you want to see if an opponent is right behind you or to make sure that you can fit in between a couple of other vehicles on the road or something similar, you can see better using a "behind the car" view. If you want to get a feel for actually being in the car, you'll probably do better with a "1st person view", such as an in-car, hood or bumper camera view. I find the ability to swap between these views quickly to be crucial to doing well in a racing game. The Fast and the Furious simply doesn't allow this to be done on the fly.

Overall, I found The Fast and The Furious to be very educational on drifting and not a bad racing game. Fans of The Fast and The Furious movie and drifting may enjoy The Fast and The Furious, but renting it first may be advisable.