Street Racing Syndicate

Street Racing Syndicate is an open world racing video game developed by Eutechnyx and published by Namco Hometek on August 31, 2004, for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, and Windows. A separate version of the game was also released for the Game Boy Advance on October 4, 2005. During its release, it was meant to compete against Need for Speed: Underground 2, the sequel to the critically acclaimed first game released in 2003.

Street Racing Syndicate
Developer(s)	Eutechnyx Mere Mortals (PC)[1]
Publisher(s)	NA: Namco Hometek EU: Codemasters (PS2, Xbox)[2] EU: Nintendo (GCN)[3] EU: HIP Interactive Europe (Windows)
Platform(s)	GameCube PlayStation 2 Xbox Windows Game Boy Advance
Release	August 31, 2004 GameCube NA: August 31, 2004[4] EU: March 4, 2005[5] AU: March 24, 2005[6] PlayStation 2 & Xbox NA: August 31, 2004[4] EU: May 6, 2005[5] AU: May 20, 2005[7][8] Windows NA: January 18, 2005 EU: March 24, 2005[9] AU: July 1, 2005[10] Game Boy Advance NA: October 4, 2005[11] EU: December 16, 2005[12]
Genre(s)	Racing
Mode(s)	Single-player

Gameplay

The game features an underground import racing scene, on which the player's main objective is to live the life of a street racer, gaining respect and affection of various women in the city. This is featured in a way that the player must win a variety of respect challenges to attract girls and maintain a good victory streak in order to ensure that they remain with the player. Once in their car, the girls will present the next open race that the player enters. As the player continues to win races, dance videos will be unlocked for viewing. Also, another plot in the game's story mode is to earn a customized Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 after winning races.

The game has 50 licensed cars from a variety of manufacturers, including models from Nissan, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Lexus, Subaru, Mazda, and Volkswagen. SRS also features a car damage model that forces the player to drive carefully, heavy damages may impact car performance and heavy repairs may drain the player of money earned from their last race. The Game Boy Advance version does not have licensed car names, lacks police chases and career free roam, and customization is different from other platforms.

Development

Promotion at E3 2003

The game was first announced as a joint-partnership between Eutechnyx and The 3DO Company at the end of May 2002 for a release the following summer.^[13] Following 3DO's bankruptcy in 2003, they auctioned off their titles with Namco Hometek picking up the publishing rights to the title for $1.5 million, compared to the $1.3 million that Ubisoft paid for the Heroes of Might and Magic franchise.^[14][15]

In March 2005, Codemasters announced that they would co-publish and distribute the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions of the game in Europe with Namco, while Nintendo of Europe would handle the GameCube version's distribution.^[16]

Reception

Aggregate scores

Aggregator	Score
	GBA	GC	PC	PS2	Xbox
GameRankings	49%[17]	68%[18]	61%[19]	66%[20]	68%[21]
Metacritic	N/A	64/100[22]	N/A	62/100[23]	66/100[24]

Review scores

Publication	Score
	GBA	GC	PC	PS2	Xbox
Electronic Gaming Monthly	N/A	6.33/10[25]	N/A	6.33/10[25]	6.33/10[25]
Eurogamer	N/A	N/A	N/A	5/10[26]	N/A
Game Informer	N/A	6.75/10[27]	N/A	6.75/10[27]	6.75/10[27]
GamePro	N/A	N/A	N/A	[28]	[28]
GameRevolution	N/A	N/A	N/A	C−[29]	C−[29]
GameSpot	N/A	6.2/10[30]	N/A	6.2/10[30]	6.2/10[30]
GameSpy	N/A	N/A	N/A	[31]	[31]
GameZone	N/A	N/A	N/A	6.9/10[32]	N/A
IGN	5.5/10[33]	7.1/10[34]	N/A	7.1/10[34]	7.1/10[34]
Nintendo Power	5.5/10[35]	3.8/5[36]	N/A	N/A	N/A
Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine	N/A	N/A	N/A	[37]	N/A
Official Xbox Magazine (US)	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	7.7/10[38]
PC Gamer (US)	N/A	N/A	59%[39]	N/A	N/A

Reception

The GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions received "mixed or average reviews" according to video game review aggregator Metacritic.^[22][23][24]