The original Juiced (2005) game received a luke warm reception especially after its original distributor Acclaim filed for bankruptcy. THQ picked up the rights and then eventually released the game with a new development team. Unfortunately as is so often the case when games jump companies it never bodes well and, well.. the game didn't turn out that great. Warp to 2007 and the latest Juiced game arrives and this time there are no excuses for not producing a quality game and to be honest THQ almost delivered it!

Hot Import Nights is based on a TV show by the same name (that I'm fairly sure hasn't even aired in Australia) and aims to simulate life as a tuner, racer and the whole underground scene of street racing. The shows target audience is the 13-30 age bracket which is similar to the game but even as though I am a "little” past the upper age limit I still found the game enjoyable and the extra gloss just added to the whole experience. There are a lot of scantily clad gyrating girls (some real, some animated) in this game and at times I thought that as well as the gambling and the illegal style of racing would have resulted in an M rating however it is rated PG.

The experience begins with a well designed rendered introduction with cars launching a race event from within a Greek style Colosseum and then ending with a T-Bone crash. After the game starts you get to create a new driver, and there heaps of options as you can change your face in nearly every way imaginable as well as deck yourself out from a wide range of clothing. You could spend hours doing this and to be honest my kids did! For some reason my kids love customizing avatars whether it be in a golf game, the Sims, Oblivion or skateboarding. Now we finally have the same cool feature in a racing series.

Like all games I decided to start off in the Career mode. Basically you buy a car (and the choice is impressive), tune it and race in a variety of events such as Circuit racing, Last Man Standing, Circuit Eliminator, Solo Drift, Twin Drift, Drift Obliterator, Drift King, and Drift Endurance. Overall I thought that the selection and styles of racing on offer were very good and they managed to keep me interested longer than I expected. In all there are 10 Leagues from Rookie to World Class and HIN Elite. To get to the later leagues you must complete a collection of events (goals). Some will be achieved during the normal course of racing (like "spooking" a driver) and others involve winning races or beating a particular driver. There are even special promotion events that will automatically progress you to the next league. It's a shame though that I couldn't work out which event it actually was and this needs to be made much more obvious. I had to persevere until the next league opens (after achieving a certain number of goals) and when that happens you need a car to match the league or upgrade your existing one(s). I always chose to buy a new car as money is very easy to come by in the game.

Graphically the game runs very well most of the time. Car models and track detail are spot on although the track in some countries is overly shiny due to wet tracks, in fact I was unsure if it was actually raining or not. Some of the cut scenes exhibit some breakup and jerkiness and during racing I did notice a bit of a frame drop/stutter at times. The fully animated crowd looks great during the racing however there was a distinct lake of anti-aliasing on the car shadows which gave us a nice view of some nasty jaggies! There's also some pop-up/draw-in as objects such as signs received higher resolution textures the closer you got. This was particularly annoying as it made seeing the cornering signs harder to detect in time. Other graphical challenges included the buildings which were also a little bland and lacking in the sort of detail which has quickly become the norm in any recent Xbox 360 racing title.

There was also a nice selection of tracks and some of them were not in a built up city for once which was a nice change and some tracks were also set at dawn or sunrise to give the game more variety. Night racing in games is not something I am normally attracted to so the change was well received.

Audio wise none of the music was overly terrible and it suited the game very well but I have no idea who most of the bands in the game are so expect to hear your standard selection of generic rock tracks. The commentator does a good job keeping up with the action but I think that would be an acquired taste but the commentary in Juiced 2 certainly was better than the commentary in Ridge Racer 6.

The racing action was very intense but unfortunately there is no damage (although I am sure I saw a tail light go out once!), but a little pop up window (which does take up to much screen real-estate in the top right) shows you different views in terms of cars behind you or perhaps an in-car view of your competitor not happy after you slammed them. There is lots of chatter between drivers as you race as well which I liked. Each driver had a personality and you identified them easily during a race and you can even place a bet with them to earn some extra $$$$. The whole game relies on ‘DNA' where your driver's profile changes as you race....from red hot to icy cold, this can then be uploaded to Xbox Live and others can then race against it. The A.I. drivers also have their own DNA profile which adds to their racing style.

In terms of customization you can customize so much in Juiced 2 that it's amazing and I am talking outside and inside the cars. Of course the usual car tuning options exist and they are unlocked by certain challenges such as keeping above a set speed limit or not crashing. Once the challenge has been reached then you can add the different upgrades and a real car nut would have a huge amount of fun deciding what manufacturer to actually use. The decal support blew me away with the options but I could only have a NSW customized number plate as the only Australian option. Come on I'm a Qlder! Perhaps as some DLC eh?

I tried the game online and only found a few players. Sadly there is a full online career mode available, but no players to race against. Interestingly, I was racing 5 people in a standard race and for the first 2 races my car would not keep up, then on the third race I won by a narrow margin and I've noticed this in the single player mode as well as sometimes the A.I. is a little iffy. When racing online you can also put your car on the line by putting your Pink Slip up for grabs, if you lose the race you lose your car though and it definitely adds a lot of tension to the racing.

It's great to still see split-screen included in racing games after way too many have stripped it out (Dirt and Flatout I'm thinking of you!) Here we had a good experience although the frame rate and graphical content took a bit of a hit and my son pointed out he didn't like any of the driving views in this mode. I always use the in-car one or bonnet cam (missing in Juiced 2) in racing games, so that was fine. Split screen misses out on the in-car view which I wasn't that upset about as I never really use it.

In terms of achievements there are no easy ones. You have to race many races before you even get 5 points. I expected some around different achievements in a race such as drift length, top speed, custom mods, number of wins etc not just level progression and online racing. A lot were around online trading as well. So in about 5 hours of play, I think I achieved 10G. Harsh and not a game for those looking for a quick points boost. One other thing that concerned me during the game was the loading times. I thought the game had hung when I first went into Career mode as it took so long to load. I have yet to experience this again, although load times are average at best.