Review of Fast and Furious Arcade Edition – At full throttle?

The most popular car franchise is back on consoles with a... particular title.

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I grew up going to arcades, I sat in the OutRun booths, shot left and right while driving in Lucky and Wild, spent a small fortune on Daytona, and I could go on listing the number of arcade-style games I got to enjoy back in the day and that I treasure greatly in my heart and memories. Additionally, I always celebrate the arrival of new installments in this genre, something that is evident in the review I gave to the second part of Horizon Chase, but that doesn’t mean that every attempt in this world is a success…

Fast & Furious Arcade Edition arrived at the few arcades that still have arcade machines today in June 2022, and the port for Xbox and PC arrives in 2025, three years after its original debut, and the question is, is it worth it? Well, to find out, you’ll have to read the review and come to your own conclusions; but the truth is that the title, developed and published by Raw Thrills, already experts in launching new arcade machines, feels very basic in terms of content of all kinds and is sustained almost exclusively on the name of the Universal car franchise.

Maybe Dominic Toretto isn’t here to save the day, but speed and absurd, meaningless action are present in this new installment that we’re taking on the task of analyzing in the following lines. Buckle up, the ride won’t be entirely pleasant, quite the opposite, but fasten your seatbelt, you never know…

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Technical Section

The title features constant action with almost no pause, as indicated by the manuals of good arcade games, and the graphics, while not dazzling, make everything that happens on screen understandable, even with drones attacking the road, a helicopter destroying everything in its path with a safe, or sharks trying to eat the body of the competing cars.

I found the sound section to be very weak with techno-style melodies that become unbearable despite the short length of the races. Maybe this has to do with my dislike of the rhythm, I admit it, but the lack of variation between songs and how bad they sound may only convince avid fans of raves and lysergic acid.

Also, the occasional voices that are heard feel very generic, I understand that using the actors and actresses from the movies can be expensive for the title’s budget, but I also think that some tones similar to those of the actors who bring the protagonists to life on the big screen could have been used. As it stands, it’s not superior to Cruisin’ USA, a title that dates back to 1994.

I will highlight the stable frame rate per second that maintains high performance constantly without losing rhythm, despite everything that happens on the screen, and that’s considering this analysis was done on an Xbox Series S, so the production gains some points here.

The game is localized into Spanish in all aspects of the interface and on-screen text, and I didn’t find any errors during my analysis.

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Gameplay

After pressing the start button, the game asks you to choose a vehicle to start competing, the catalog of options is not extensive at all, and the player must choose one of eight options: Chevrolet Corvette Z06, Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport ’63, Shelby GT500 KR, Ford GT, Ford Bronco DR, Dodge Charger ’70, Shelby GT500 ’67, and the Jeep Wrangler. Each of these models can be customized with some predetermined color options, but paradoxically, none of them resemble the car models from the franchise.

Let’s take the Charger from Toretto, an icon since the first movie, which even appears on the title’s cover. Any fan of the franchise, no matter how casual, imagines the black car with a supercharger, but no, you can customize it with various paint tones, except black, and the car will also include a rear spoiler, whether you like it or not, making it more similar to the Daytona model than the one from the movie.

Beyond the lack of variety, the choice of cars, always considering that we’re dealing with a Fast & Furious game, is poor. They could have added the Honda S2000, the Mitsubishi Eclipse, the Lancer (or any Japanese car, for that matter!), some of the cars seen in Fate of the Furious in Cuba, taking advantage of the fact that the country is represented in one of the tracks, and I could go on naming better options for several lines.

In addition to the base models, it’s possible to unlock a special version of the car, called Furious, by finishing first in each track with the same model, a task that won’t take more than 3 or 4 attempts, I assure you. This new version is nothing more than the specially modified vehicle with more nitro available.

The differences between vehicles, beyond the aesthetic aspect, are almost non-existent, and all of them handle more or less the same way, with three nitrous oxide tanks that can be recharged in some circuits by passing over the corresponding icon. The tracks also include shortcuts or alternative routes that don’t greatly alter the course of the race, although they can serve as a variant to explore other points and make things less repetitive.

Additionally, it’s possible to attack rivals with an explosion that makes nearby competitors fly through the air, although given the distances in the races, this rarely works correctly.

The game features six tracks that will take the player to different points around the world related to the movie franchise, so races will be held in Colombia, Abu Dhabi, the Swiss Alps, Yellowstone, Havana, and Hong Kong Island. While each track has its difficulty, none of them are impossible, quite the opposite, although the only way to win the circuit and complete the special objective is by finishing first.

Following the line of the origin of the Vin Diesel movies, you can imagine that the game is about street racing, but here, many things are mixed together, and the scenarios are filled with nuclear bombs, drones, missiles, sharks, and other threats that make you think the title was born as a generic driving arcade game to which the movie franchise license was later added, but it didn’t quite come together in the final product, although this is just speculation from the writer.

The multiplayer options are limited to a split-screen mode to play with a friend, but there’s no online mode, something that would have been very beneficial for the title and seems like another missed opportunity.

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Duration

The races last approximately three minutes, and there are only six scenarios to compete in, so in 30 minutes, you can easily have finished everything there is to do, at least with one vehicle, and you can do the same with the other models, at least to unlock all the Furious editions, although I’m not sure if it’s really worth it.

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Conclusion

I was really excited about this title, considering everything the Fast & Furious franchise could bring to an arcade game, but none of what I had imagined was reflected in the title. Maybe the gaming experience with a steering wheel, sitting in a booth with pedals and a gearshift, creates an atmosphere that allows you to overlook the game’s various flaws; but I didn’t have any of that in my analysis, and most players who get the title won’t have all these elements either.

It’s an arcade game, yes, but Fast & Furious, not so much, and what’s worse, the game feels very empty of content and limited. A good option, maybe for mobile devices, but definitely subpar for consoles and PC.