Lowrider (PS2) Reviews
By G. Turner
Posted February 12, 2004

The mack-dad will make ya JUMP JUMP!!

There are two types of bad games - there is the unplayable and then there is the laughably bad. In the former category I'd place a 'winner' like P.N. 03, and in the latter belongs Lowrider. It's not as if you might mistake Lowrider as a 'Triple A' title to begin with - it's a game based on 'lowrider culture' (whatever that is - all I know is that I'm certainly not a part of it, and will stay as far away from it as possible) - that means it's a game where you try to make customized cars dance. You heard me right, dance. To be fair, sometimes you just make them hop and not dance, but the majority of the game is making the car dance. It's no Space Channel 5, but it does in a pinch if you imagine the hulking metal monstrosities as Morolians.

I would love nothing more to say than 'You know things are going poorly by the time the full motion video (FMV) rolls in the intro sequence,' but let's face it - practically all FMV title sequences blow, and they certainly aren't indicative of the quality of the game. However, Lowrider certainly does establish it's theme sufficiently with it's FMV: scantily clad women seemingly randomly picked off the street that are superimposed over cars making vaguely sexual jerks and thrusts. And there's even more FMV's in the bulk of the game, what they call career mode, also dubbed 'Golden Days'. Presumably it was named as such in hopes of instilling some sort of immediate feelings of nostalgia for the game. Trust me - the last thing I'll be reminicing about in ten years was how I got sauced off of a case of Sierra Pale Ale and played Lowrider for several hours straight.

First they love me ...

Either way, 'Golden Days' starts you off with a clunker of a car, rustier than my high school French, and prompts you to woo your locals by performing in several events: Street, Hop, Dance and Event. Street, the most embarrassing of all the events, requires you to roll down the street (hence the name!) and execute whatever 'dance' move the locals on the street yell at you. If you fail, they berate you with boos and presumably kick your car. I say presumably because the audience is composed of about five different sprites (yes sprites - and this is, in theory a 3D game) with three different frames of animation - and each sprite has a dirty layer of grey around it so you can actually see how poorly the sprite was integrated with the background. The audience, simply put, looks worse than you can ever imagine - NES cut-scenes have more detail, animation and fluidity than this game. In future towns (yes, you eventually manage to drag yourself out of the strip in good ol' San Diego!) you end up having to appease the same people several times over, guaranteeing that you'll be playing and replaying that town's Street fifteen times or more! Moving along, Hop is pretty self-explanatory - compete to see which car can hop the highest in the air! It's like jump rope, but without the rope and with cars rather than spunky kids with braids singing a taunting limerick. Dance pits you against another car in a ludicrous attempt to score the most points while you pull off a number of simple moves. Event is basically more dancing, but with more frustration.

If you couldn't tell, for the most part gameplay is pretty thin - the bulk of it is one finger gameplay, with the exception of some latter dance patterns but then you can just mash the pad with your fatter fingers. In fact, the simple gameplay is actually kind of appealing - it's so dumb, so thin, that it ends up being a light hearted romp in the park to play - well, if said park contained paper trees and paper dolls throwing paper trash at you (apparently, in Events the audience shows their appreciation towards the contestants by throwing paper cups directly at the cars. It's a sub-cultural sign of love I'm sure). The voice acting is just as simple - in fact, in each match you receive the exact same announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen - welcome to the game... Lowrider! Today's show is going to be more exciting than usual." You don't even get a "Today's sub-finals are going to be more exciting than usual." or anything that even approaches enticing for individual matches. And just when you thought they couldn't get any worse, when you pull off special moves the game verbally taunts you! Each time you pull off a 'special' you're accousted with 'It sucks! It sucks!" Thanks Lowrider! My self-esteem was already as low as dirt by just renting this game, but now I'm feeling like I'm ten feet underground!

... then they lambast me.

Now what would a Career Mode be without the ability to customize your ride? In this department, Lowrider is simultaneously almost impressive and horribly vacuous. Now see, you actually have a decent amount of customization options - everything from your battery to your trim, to numerous tacky front and back murals. The murals by far are the best, with some of the most unintentionally humorous descriptions such as "Some dull-looking murals match certain colors", "This mural will fit cool!" and "Many guys like erotic murals like this" - hell, even the G4 logo is a mural! Unfortunately, you're never given a complete selection at once, the game doesn't keep track of your inventory, you're given only the vaguest of ideas on how a component will affect your car and it's amazingly easy to accidently downgrade! Don't fret though, right after you exit the shop you encounter by far some of the best 'dialog' in the game: the friend that hooked you up with the whole 'lowrider' scene. I will never, ever forget the line "Call it pimpin' if you want. I call it promoting!" What a classic.

Now, there's a whole lot of stuff I'm leaving out here - like the fact that at times you're supposed to 'transform' your car during some events, which basically means raising and lowering the hood & trunk. Oh, and you can perform special moves with these 'transforms'! Like spewing confetti and doves out of your truck. Doves!! I bet they weather that trip real well! Or better yet, projectile vomiting the colors of the Italian flag out of the front of your car (well, that's what the end result resembles). Then there is the rest of the arcade mode, most of which is driven by one button on your controller. Oh, and other than the 3d models of the cars, the game could be recreated on a Genesis - from the antiquated music to the awful 'buddy' interaction, it's a bang-on recreation of shit 16-bit era audio & visuals. I shouldn't leave out the gaudy, cheesy and practically insulting FMVs, but for the sake of actually being able to sleep tonight I will. Did I mention your final opponent is named 'BAD ASS'? Ultimately, this all adds up to a great party game to show to anyone that appreciates a sheer lack of talent that literally takes skill to achieve. Yes, Lowrider is a playable game, and is actually amusing and dare I even say fun, under the right conditions. Unfortunately, most of those conditions require copious amounts of alcohol and plenty of like-minded folks to mock the disc in your PS2. It certainly is not worth the $40 price tag, but hey, I'll definitely buy it if I see it Drunksaling for two bucks sometime.

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Est. 2003