This game was actually a nice surprise. Granted, the graphics aren't exactly next-generation, and the music is about what you'd expect to hear in your neighborhood Hooters, but compared to some of the crap you could be playing on PSOne, there are worse games you could buy. I can appreciate the lack of aesthetic value that you might say damns this game to the inner circles of Hell, but try this on for size: Hooters Road Trip is a very, very close approximation in game form to the tackiness anyone would expect from visiting the actual restaurant. And if that's not the definition of a good licensed game, I don't know what is... :)

So, you grab a car and hit the road. The look of the game is a stab at cel-shading that works fairly well. It's no Auto Modellista, but what is? So, on the road, the graphics are very reminiscent of the classic Pole Position. Sure, a bit more depth and complexity can be discerned here, but not much. The cars move around like the blocky pixel conglomerates they are, and nothing much happens visually beyond that. What does start to look different is an arrival at the destination point for one leg of your road trip. Of course, you check in at the local Hooters and send a postcard to your friends, so you get little animations of this, along with a short, short, short video clip of a Hooters girl welcoming you to the city. And then it's back on the road again. Part of me thinks that this must be the prelude or test product for the AO (adult only) games of the future. In other words, if a bunch of teenage boys will go out and spend money to watch chesty waitresses stumbling through their lines on-screen while shaking all their assets (the waitresses, not the boys...although they could be shaking something also, I guess ;) then the future of pornographic videogames is assured. Honestly, I think that future is assured anyway, but don't think for a minute that Hooters Road Trip is going to give you hours of peep-time with exotic Hooters girls from around the world. Maybe the most disappointing thing here is how little exposure to the girls we actually get. But, this is good, clean fun that won't hurt anyone or make you go blind.

The layout of modes in Hooters Road Trip is smart. Like a good racing game, we start with the ability to Practice. Another mode, Test Drive, is distinguished from Practice by being a quick road test of a car on a single track that doesn't change, in essence providing a standard you can use to measure each new car's performance against. Practice Mode is more flexible, letting you take any track you've opened up and race it with any car. Once you feel you've really gotten the hang of how cars 'handle' in Hooters Road Trip, you start working on conquering the Hooters Empire. Only purity of heart and mind will get you through, so listen not to The Dark Side, young Jedi. First, you simply hit the road. By placing in the Top 5, you'll be able to continue on a second, third road trip and beyond. Once you've knocked down the first and second, you'll have to place 4th or better to continue, and after the first four road trips, you'll need to be 3rd or better. After you earn your first car, you'll have to go through License Car Mode to prove that you're man or woman enough to take this baby on a road trip. After you 'license' the car, it is available as one of your choices for the Roadtrip Mode. During the main mode, each road trip is programmed to occur in a particular order. Once you've unlocked a few, you can choose to custom build your own road trip through the Custom Roadtrips Mode. Basically, you'll have the option to link together different city destinations to chart course where YOU want to go. A nice feature to customize your gameplay further is the Music setting, which lets you build a jukebox out of the available tunes. You can select tracks to play in a certain order, or set things up for random play, which is the default setting.

The most difficult thing is watching those poor girls try and string together more than 5 words that don't have anything to do with Buffalo Wings, draft beer or what time they're getting off work. So, I feel for 'em. But, the driving isn't really challenging. The difficulty setting mostly affects the number of things coming at you or present on the roadway. In a more difficult mode, you'll be dodging trucks and cars more often in the oncoming lane, which just means it will take you longer to see those foxy ladies.

The Hooters Road Trip engine does a fine job of creating the light, arcade-style action Ubi Soft was looking for in the game. Honestly, the controls feel mushy, the collision detection is all out of whack, and the cars move - as the famous bard once said - like tigers on vaseline. So, don't come to this one expecting a revolution in driving action. The surprising thing is how the layout of the game objectives and the reward of a 5-second Hooters girl clip at the end of each track will keep you playing into the next track. Cel-shading is the friend of every frustrated designer and programmer, in my opinion. In talented hands, we see amazing things like Auto Modellista, XIII or Sly Cooper but even in less-talented hands, the smoothing effect that cel-shading provides helps to make a sloppy jumble of polygons appear cleaner and more intentional. The tracks are also simple, but substantial enough to keep your interest.

So, there's nothing terrible here, and I have to say that if companies are going to make less than revolutionary games, they might as well include a bunch of busty babes for us to gawk at sometime during the action. Girls, I don't exactly know what you want, maybe the boys from N'Sync showing off their bods, but substitute accordingly depending on sexual preference. I like to think of myself as someone who approaches all games fairly and with a healthy sense of skepticism, so believe me when I say this one doesn't suck and that it might even be worth spending the money on if nothing else worth ten dollars is available. Or, if you like looking at grainy FMV of scantily clad Hooters girls. After all, ten dollars probably won't even buy you a lunch at Hooters... :)