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Import Tuner Challenge - Student Review
Score: 65%
ESRB: Everyone
Publisher: Ubisoft Entertainment
Developer: Ubisoft Entertainment
Media: DVD/1
Players: 1 - 2
Genre: Racing

Graphics & Sound:
The graphics on Import Tuner Challenge are really good as are most XBOX 360 games. The cars look just like they do in real life. The settings are the streets of Tokyo which are supposed to be almost identical. The backgrounds while riding through the game could be a little better due to the fact that it is hard to see upcoming turns, so you may run into walls every now and then. As far as the sounds go, you hear the engines roaring and hear the "VROOMS" as you pass people by or get passed. There really is not too much more to the sounds the cars make. As far as in game music, there isn’t anything that will catch your attention, so get a CD ready that you like to put on your hard drive.

Gameplay:
The modes that Import Tuner Challenge offers are: Quest, Time Attack, Free Run and VS. Mode. In the storyline part of the game, also known as Quest mode, you start off by choosing from a little more than 10 cars, which you will take on your opponents. The cars have different prices so you cannot just buy the top of the line car off the bat. From there, you add on what you can with your leftover money. There are three different times of day to race: day, evening, and night, all of which you will find different teams at different times. There are two types of racing you can do, which are flashing your lights while you are in Free Play or you can go to a garage and race up to 4 cars and take their money. The options to win are first to the finish line or you have to lose the other person a certain distance for a certain amount of time. Import Tuner Challenge courses have Free Mode so you do not have to necessarily race all the time. Once you’re ready to race, pull up behind a car and flash your lights and off you go.

There are over 5 million options for customizing your car in Import Tuner Challenge, which if you’re into that, you will have hours to play with settings. To me, ITC gets old pretty quick, and I can only go around a course so many times before I get bored. As you beat people, you do get new cars, new add-on car parts, and a few new streets of Tokyo. About every 15 people you beat, you will unlock at least one or two things.


Difficulty:
Initially, I found it hard to get used to the steering, braking and acceleration of the cars in Import Tuner Challenge. I lost 5 times in a row without coming close to the other guy. After playing around with my settings, I found it a lot easier to race and was soon beating everyone on the road. I lost maybe 1 out of every 7 races, which was either due to wrecks or the fact that the car I was racing was on a higher level than I should have been racing against.

Game Mechanics:
In Import tuner Challenge, you can adjust steering, braking, torque and acceleration with ease. From there, you can go out and play with your car to find your best setting, which may take a while. Once I got this down, there was no real difficulty with gameplay. I found it is very hard to see over the car, so you may tend to run into walls, especially while driving at night because everything is so dark.

-Jonathan Poche

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