I didn’t have any expectations before waking up this morning for Fast & Furious: Crossroads, the video game spin-off of the action-driving franchise. Having now seen how the game actually plays, I’m going to continue not having any expectations.
Bandai Namco have released some footage of the Fast & Furious game, which is scheduled to drop on August 7 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. It’s largely a series of objectives and boss fights through the mechanism of driving: take out Kai, take down a tank with a large HP metre, escape rock slides, and so on.
Sounds fairly standard, then. Where it starts to fall down is the voice-acting, which the gameplay trailer below features a ton of. It’s … it’s not great. And that’s not helped by the graphics looking pretty dated, with a lot of dull textures and just a lack of detail. Hell, even the main image on the official Fast & Furious Crossroads website looks flat:
(Also, if you look closely, the link for the main background image links back to a URL that probably shouldn’t be publicly accessible.)
Most of the footage shown barely shows any other cars or enemy AI on screen. There’s a string of quicktime events for various objectives, like taking out the turrets on a tank, or detaching a rocket’s connecting roads. The UI shows some basic abilities for different drivers, as well as what looks like the ability to switch drivers by using the D-pad.
Still, the whole trailer comes off feeling like an on-rails shooter in cars. It’s real strange.
I know it’s never great to put the boot into a game before it’s released. But trailers are part of a game’s official marketing. It’s the developer and publisher saying, this is what you can look forward to. This is footage to get you excited for an upcoming release.
When you have more questions than excitement, that’s probably not a good sign.
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/04/the-17-moments-that-defined-the-fast-and-the-furious/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/pabxkliyoon39symrquw.png” title=”The 17 Moments That Defined The Fast And The Furious” excerpt=”The eighth of the Fast & Furious movies is upon us. This is an exciting, nerve-wracking time.”]
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