Fast & Furious: Showdown

Fast & Furious: Showdown
This game does not seem to be too fast nor furious.
Genre(s): Racing Platform(s): Microsoft Windows Nintendo 3DS PlayStation 3 Wii U Xbox 360 Release: NA: May 21, 2013 AU: May 22, 2013 EU: May 24, 2013 Developer(s): Firebrand Games Publisher(s): Activision Country: United Kingdom Series: Fast & Furious Predecessor: Fast & Furious 6 Successor: Fast & Furious Crossroads

Fast & Furious: Showdown is a racing video game developed by Firebrand Games and published by Activision for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3, Wii U and Xbox 360 in May 2013.

Plot

The game begins with a cutscene featuring Monica Fuentes finding Riley Hicks digging around through files in her office, which the latter introduces herself as states that in 24 hours, she is going to meet Luke Hobbs to know everything he has been up to.

Why It's Slow

1. The graphics are absolutely terrible and look like the were ripped straight from the era where video games were released for the sixth gen console, with the textures looking like they were made in PowerPoint in 4 minutes and models looking like they were made out of cheap plastic. It is worth mentioning that this game was released in 2013, instead of 2002.
2. Poorly written plot that looks like it was written by a college student who was probably dancing to some random music way too much instead of writing a creative plot.
3. Horrible controls in general. Regardless of which vehicle you choose, each vehicle moves like a cardboard box on ice with a bunch of stones inside it. Turning around is not easy to control as well, as the vehicles turn around as if their wheels were covered in glue.
4. Awful physics. Notably, when you hit something even when you're driving really fast, your vehicle will just simply bounce very slightly like a balloon. The vehicles in this game are also more like tanks without any cannons, as no matter how much you'll hit another vehicle, yours will survive without any problem and the other vehicle will just bounce rather high for no reason after hitting yours. One of the vehicles even causes other vehicles to just drive on it, or even throw them into oblivion, which is just laughable.
5. Despite having several stages, the missions are very repetitive and boring. These range from generic races, a simple mode where you have to avoid police cars, to a mode where you have to throw grenades thrown by your enemies onto a truck.
6. The last mission is nothing but a lazy recycle of the same mission that can be played at the beginning. Everything in the recycled mission is the same, ranging from cutscenes, dialogues, and other stuff, which is complete laziness.
7. When you get experience points and unlock new cars, the new cars are basically the same thing, with the only thing you unlock if you get a higher level are just new colours. That's it, nothing else.
8. The A.I. is extremely poor. When your enemies want to hit you, all they do is just temporarily glue next to your car, they don't care if you're passing through them to win a race, some enemies just hit each other for no reason, and if you try to damage them, they just simply drive onto you just so they can allow you to deal damage to them. With these flaws, the A.I. in Fast & Furious: Showdown is arguably one of the worst A.I. in racing games.
9. While not too bad, the soundtrack is rather generic as it is a mix of pop and rock, something common in racing games like Fast & Furious.
10. There are a few strange bugs that make the player scratch their heads in confusion, similar to bugs in Action 52 or Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. For example, the shadows sometimes disappear shortly for no reason at all, when you reach the edge of the map, the camera suddenly goes underground, and the game can randomly crash once or twice. Probably the weirdest bug in the whole game is that when you change some of your settings, they do not work when you first change them, which itself is confusing for a 2013 racing game. At least the bugs aren't that much game-breaking, but still.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The soundtrack, despite being generic, is alright and catchy, as it is a mix of pop and rock.
2. The cover looks very cool, and is probably the best thing about the game.

Reception

Upon release, Fast & Furious: Showdown received very negative reviews from both critics and players. On Metacritic, the game has a 21/100 score for the PS3 version, while the Xbox 360 version has a 22/100 score. Nintendo Life gave the Wii U version a 2/10.

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