Interview: The Fast and the Furious

In terms of racing, drifting is a term that refers to a particular driving technique wherein the car moves into and out of curves at an extreme angle, oftentimes resulting in the rear end of the car appearing as if it is chasing the front around the turn. The goal of this technique is to make the best use of the car's speed and inertia by maneuvering around corners in such a way as to lose as little speed as possible. The concept of drifting or oversteering has been around in one form or another for decades, though it is only in recent years that the technique itself has become the central focus of an entire sport. Because of this, many video games have been built around this technique, though admittedly it wasn't until Universal Pictures' 'The Fast and the Furious' romanticized the underground racing scene that the concept of street racing and drifting truly began to take root within the mainstream video game market, most notably with Electronic Arts' Need For Speed: Underground.

However, while that game sold well, and was generally lauded by critics, the game was panned by many players as an unwelcome departure for that franchise. Even so, its success helped open the doors for a bevy of other 'me too' underground and drift racing games, though few, if any have enjoyed much more than a modicum of success, if that. Namco Bandai and developer Eutechnyx hope to change that with the upcoming PlayStation 2 racer, The Fast and the Furious. Inspired by the events in the third film, 'The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift', the game looks to become the first mainstream drift racing hit for the console, but there is an old saying about the best laid plans.

To find out more about this upcoming title, which ships in North America on September 26, we recently spoke with the game's associate producer, Mitch Boyer, who, along with Dan Tovar, are currently helping to bring this game to life.

Hello Mitch, and thanks for taking the time to speak with us regarding The Fast and the Furious. Could you give us some of you background on this project, as well as what other projects you have worked on prior to coming on board with this game?

Absolutely. As a production team, we are enthusiasts ourselves who track our personal cars with NASA. We have a great number of friends in the actual pro-drifting and tuning communities and have gone drifting with some of the best drifters in the world over the past few years. This has allowed us unparalleled access to the culture that the film is based upon and that comes across in the game. When we've shown the game to people in the actual scene, they've been pretty stunned at what we've been able to accomplish.

The Fast and the Furious is based upon the third movie in the ongoing film franchise, yet is separate from the events in the movie. So why call it 'The Fast and the Furious' at all?

The game is unique in that it meshes the best elements of the films with the actual scene that the films are based upon. You will have the chance to directly compare and compete with both the cars from the film as well as the most amazing real-world tuner cars in the world! You won't get this experience anywhere else but in The Fast and the Furious.

The third film largely takes place in and around the Tokyo Bay area and we've extended this even farther in the game. You'll be able to roam and race on the famous "Wangan" expressway that surrounds the Tokyo Bay, and also compete on multiple "Touge" runs spread across four unique mountains. This offers the player not only a diverse world to explore but also new ways to compete. Being set in Japan has given us not only a fresh look and feel but also the chance to offer gamers a glimpse of cars, shops and even customization choices that have never been offered in one package before.



The Fast and the Furious has everything that fans of the films love and everything that real racers, tuners and enthusiasts have been missing. And Namco Fans can look forward to unique "Drift Charms" (stuffed toys that drifters hang from the back of their cars) and vinyl art to customize their cars with from across Namco's extensive history of games!

When it comes to licensed video games, the gamer community has succumbed to a sort of "once bitten, twice shy" mentality, and for good reason. Video games based on movie licenses have not shared a particularly illustrious history, instead more times than not being distinguished by watered down gameplay and half-hearted design beneath the cover of a recognizable property. How is The Fast and the Furious different?

First off, our team is composed of tuning scene super-freaks. We care a lot about doing this game justice and aren't coming at the subject matter as outsiders. We live this culture ourselves and know it as well as (or more so than) any team out there, which is why, some of the most prestigious drivers and tuners in the scene are behind this game.

You won't see Japanese Drifters like Kazuya Bai and Daijiro Yoshihara putting their actual signature in any game but this one. You won't see the real cars driven by these guys in any game but F&F. There are D1GP and Formula D drivers and cars in F&F as well as real-world crews and people who keep evolving the scene itself…in the game. You won't see some of the top shops in Japan like TYPE ONE and WESTCO in any game but this one. The fastest man on the freeways of Japan for real ("Smoky" Nagata of TOP SECRET) is in this game. And this level of aftermarket support directly translates to an insane amount of real customization options for players which they've never had access to, before this.

Isn't it time that gamers can actually run the same rims and kits that they see in magazines, movies and on their favorite real cars, in a game?

Drift racing and its video game equivalent has become increasingly popular recently, yet at least so far, no game really has nailed the real world drifting mechanic - an observation reinforced by the sub par reviews that have been leveled upon recently released drift racers, namely Yuke's D1 Grand Prix and Genki's Tokyo Extreme Racer Drift. Why, strictly in your opinion, do you think these games have missed the mark, while - I assume - you feel The Fast and the Furious will succeed?

First off, we are friends with the D1GP team at Yuke's and I think that there's a pretty wide gap between the user reviews of the game and the press reviews. Last I checked you were seeing a massive discrepancy of 4.3 vs 7.7 at Gamespot and 3.7 vs 7.4 at IGN. So I don't think that this necessarily comes down to a failure to create a solid drifting mechanic on the part of Yuke's as much as differences in the expectations of the press and the hardcore fan base of D1GP. There may other reasons for this as well, but I will limit my comments to the drifting model.

Regarding our balance of keeping it real and maintaining mainstream appeal I don't think you can do both in equal proportion and succeed. Drifting is an inherently technical way of driving with real techniques to upset the balance and grip of the car. As soon as you add that element (as we have) into the driving model you push it towards being a little more hardcore than mainstream.

This made player education, critical. You can't just throw players in at the deep end and expect them to be able to drift successfully. You have to teach people basic car control pertaining to over steer and then teach them each drift technique. Both games do this in some way. In our game, each technique is taught to the player by Daijiro Yoshihara via, text, Voice Over, FMV's and playable tutorials. We worked closely with both Dai and McKinney Motorsports to design these tutorials with input from other pro-drifters.

The difference between our approach to this and D1GP or Gran Turismo is that we separate this education from progression.

Forcing people to learn this stuff before they are allowed to compete (like GT license tests) frustrates gamers because they get locked out of most of the game. Since we wanted F&F to let people jump right in, the education layer is perpetually available but never mandated. If you want to just jump into drift battles and flail you can, but you'll probably lose. So the player is encouraged to practice and train but they can do whatever they want.



But Education alone isn't enough. You need to give the player FEEDBACK on how their actions are affect the drift. In all drifting you want to know how much angle you've got, etc....but more important is finding that balance between angle, throttle and counter steer to keep the drift going without spinning or gripping. We designed an onscreen SPIN WARNING and GRIP WARNING to let players know when they are about to lose the drift either way. This is very useful to players in letting them know when to back down on the throttle. I don't think there is enough player feedback in D1GP. Hardcore guys understand what is going on during a drift, but you can't expect that gamers or even the press will. So we've added this element in hopes that it will help people find the right balance to keep a great drift going for a long time.

But even player feedback isn't enough. We had to tune the physics model itself to allow for the maintaining of continuous steep angle drifts (provided that your car has the "oomph" and that the driver is using actual techniques). I think we accomplished this and it's lot of fun once you get a feel for it. The steering is touchier than most people are used to initially, but that level of control is needed for drifting.

Much like actual drifting, we balanced the driving model with the idea that "More is not always better". In drifting it's all about balance not raw power, and this is where we differ from the games that we will likely be compared to. You're at a disadvantage with cars that have too much power, as they spin with even a light throttle touch at the wrong moment if you aren't careful.

A balanced car like an S2000 with 300-400hp at the wheel, work's great in the game, and stock muscle cars like the 1969 dodge charger 426 HEMI are fun too because the long wheel base and soft suspension balances out the weight and torque.

We spent a lot of time working on a player-selectable DRIVER ASSIST that will help novice players keep the car from spinning. This makes a few of the more advanced techniques more difficult to initiate and may restrict how much angle a player can pull off during a drift, and it's this risk versus reward that gives the drifting model a broader range of realism. F&F is NOT a sim, but the basic principles behind real drifting do all apply and work.

But physics tuning isn't enough either. The way drift points are tallied in Japanese Drift games is brutal. They punish failure rather than reward success. One mistake and all points gained during a drift are GONE. That's cool for the hardcore, but you lose 90% of US gamers when you do that. In F&F we decided that all points gained during a drift are kept until such point as the player makes a mistake (collision, etc) or is unable to keep the drift going.

As you can see, we've definitely given the drifting model a lot of thought and effort and hope that gamers enjoy the balance that the game presents. It's easy to learn but difficult to master and that's part of what is so cool about it.

Some have commented that The Fast and the Furious looks to be a blatant copy of EA's Need for Speed: Underground. I assume you do not feel that this is a fair assumption, or do you? What do your game do differently, or better, than Underground?

No one can argue with the success of the NFS series. It's a bit ironic though that F&F is being accused of ripping off NFS considering Underground was clearly inspired by the first The Fast and the Furious' film. But it is great PR on EA's part to have been able to convince the world that the chicken came before the egg.

We have a lot of respect for the Black Box team but we're trying to make a different game than they are. In particular, our approach to customization and drifting is completely different to their direction. Every part, every car and every wheel in our game is real. NFS frankly uses fake parts that they make up. Everything in our game is authentic. That means you can build the cars you see in Formula D, D1GP, or cruising Japan's freeways. That means if you're a tuner like we are, you can build your actual car in game. Right down to your 4 piston breaks, their color and the Veilside body kit you just bought, you can build your car in game. What you will see is real deal JDM parts, recreated with loving detail by people who know the difference and care that gamers do too.

Also, ask any drifter and he or she will tell you…some cars just suck at drifting. But in NFS even your front wheel drive econo-box is a great drift car. That's weak. Why bother with different cars if there's no difference between them? In F&F, some cars are great for drifting and other aren't. There's a reason why most of the drivers who drift professionally tend to use cars like the Nissan Silvia or Toyota Trueno (Corolla). It's because these cars are well balanced and are suited to drifting. These cars will show up in NFS because they are popular in the drift community, not because they are better suited to drifting from the physics side.

(And you'll never be sitting on a mountain of cash but not be able to buy a $300 exhaust because you haven't unlocked it yet. If you've got the money, you'll be able to buy almost every part in the game right off the bat.)



Could you talk a bit more about the game's drift model system, and what exactly it brings to drift-style racing gameplay that other games do not?

We covered some of this with the previous answers to questions, but it's been a huge advantage having a lot of friends in the drifting community to bounce our ideas off of. I think when you have the support of the people who do something for real, you have a much better chance of succeeding.

Rhys Millen (considered the top drifter in the US) is not only in the game but has spoken on MTV's "Overdrive" about the game saying:

"It's one of the only games that I've had an opportunity to play, that I feel as a driver that I can actually grab the controller and my inputs are translating to the screen. Putting it up against others, I would have to say this is the number one game out there."

We didn't buy this support, we earned the respect of those in the scene by being honest, playing straight, remembering everyone who helped us and giving back in every way that we can.

I still think there is room to improve the drifting in F&F even further in the future but we're off to a great start.

Drifting can be a punishingly difficult gameplay system, especially for newcomers, and as such as kept many people from being able to enjoy these sorts of games perhaps as much as they would have otherwise. Is this something the developers tried to keep in mind while creating The Fast and the Furious?

When you go drifting for real, you see how much goes into it. It's an extremely technical way to drive and this wasn't lost on us. Most games don't even bother trying. They just rotate the car when the player turns, throw some smoke particles at the screen and say that's drifting. It ISN'T. If that was all there was to drifting, everyone would be doing it and it wouldn't be so impressive.

From day one we talked about how to teach players how to drift using real techniques and admittedly, there IS a learning curve to it. But it's worth it when you pull it off and know that you are drifting because you used a FEINT technique or a CLUTCH KICK. When you pull that off…it's awesome. When you find the right car and the right set up to fit your style…that feeling is great. And for people who want to take that feeling even farther, we've even included a $50 coupon towards real track time at any NASA event in the country. We want people to feel the rush of really getting out there and driving in a safe environment where you can really learn to haul ass. And NASA's HPDE program is the best way to do that.

Is the game based around a mission structure with specified challenges, or are the races more of an impromptu sort of thing?

F&F is a racing and customizing game first and foremost. We didn't want it to be mission based where the player had to go wax their cat or something before being allowed to race. People buy racing games because they like to race.

Also, because it's tied to a film, we didn't want to be locked down to a script that was changing constantly over the course of development. So we asked Universal for their blessing to design the game around drifting, high speed freeway racing and customization and set that concept in the world of the films.

They could have forced us to limit the player to just what goes on in the films but they didn't. They were excited by the direction that we wanted to take the game and were fully behind it. You'll still see cars and locations from the films, but we weren't limited by them. So it's the best of both worlds!



Could you talk a bit more about vehicle customization, which of course a very big part of the street racing scene, as well as games like this? Are we talking deep customizing gameplay, such that gear heads will be satisfied?

Because it's F&F we didn't want to make the tuning so hardcore that you had to be a gear head to enjoy the game. So you won't have to tune your air-fuel ratio or anything to play. But enthusiasts and "car guys" out there are going to be amazed.

We've got nearly 100 real cars that both fans of the films and true racers will love, ranging from rare JDM models to Detroit muscle to concept cars! And with those cars you can customize them in all the same ways that the top cars in the scene are.

We've got over 300 real body kits from companies you'd actually WANT to put on your car like TOP SECRET, Veilside, and C-West, as well as rare JDM kits from companies like ORIGIN, D-Drug, BN Sports, CHARGESPEED, Ings, URAS and MORE! These kits can be mixed and matched or you can convert the car to full wide body. This includes, bumpers, side skirts, hoods, spoilers and more.

We've got 100 wheels from top companies and brands like Rays Engineering, VOLK, G-Games, Gram Lights, WORK, Weds Sport, Yokohama Original Wheel Design, Enkei, 5Zigen, AME, SSR, Veilside, WALD, Nismo, Ralliart, SPOON Sports, STi, TRD, Saleen, and Motegi. Once you've found a set of rims you like, you can select any color the rim comes in, pop it on your car and set the size (diameter and width) on a per-axle basis just like the pro's do.

You can "black out" or "chrome-out" your headlights or run "Sleepy Eyed" on your old school drifter. You can run undercar neon, nitrous purge systems and valvestem LED's on your wheels. You can hang a drift charm off your rear bumper and choose from a TON on loved NAMCO characters from Pac-man, Mr. Driller, Taiko Drum Master, Dig Dug, Katamari Damacy, Tekken, Soul Calibur or even the mascot of TEIN, "Dampachi".

We even extend the customization to the User interface with the inclusion of the real world vehicle dynamics processor AVG-VDP1 from PIONEER. This lets players choose from three different modes that can display all the car's actual telemetry data in real-time!

You can tint windows, paint your brake calipers or take it to the paint shop for a full range of colors, paint finishes and the most extensive vinyl system and art library ever seen in one game. You can even run Namco vinyls on your car. It's really only limited by your imagination and how much time you are willing to put in. And once you are done, you can take your car online and show the world!

From all that you have been saying, a key to the game seems to be to build and accessorize your car for a given situation, rather than settle for a "one size fits all"sort of design. Can you give us an example situation, and what a player might want to keep in mind when outfitting their car to best tackle that challenge?

Exactly right. This goes back to what I was saying earlier about some cars being good at certain race types and not others. Car choice is critical. FF cars make inexpensive freeway racers but suck at drifting.

If you are looking to own the Wangan, you'll want to build a car with a good amount of down force and grip with a tranny that has long gear ratios for top end. Boost or V8 muscle is a must and generally the more power the better. And NOS will settle all ties….

But that same car will be a disadvantage on the mountains where balance is much more important than raw power. For drift battles you want a rear wheel drive car (FR or MR depending on your style) with 350 to 500 (and that's pushing it) at the wheels, low weight, an LSD and "Hipari" style drift tires.

From there you can fine tune the balance by choosing more or less rigid suspension packages and brakes, stepping the tire compound up or down for more or less grip, and changing the wheel dimensions for more or less sidewall flex (lower profile equals more crisp cornering) and contact patch (more tire surface grabbing the ground). Upgrade to a more aggressive clutch for snappier CLUTCH KICK drifts but greater risk of spinning. And spoilers are also an option for more or less high speed stability during corner entry. So there are a TON of elements for players to play with to find a set up that fits their style.



Winning or losing in F&F will come down to car choice, set up and player skill. We think players are ready for this in a street racing game.

How many different licensed can manufacturers are there in the game? As The Fast and the Furious is set in Tokyo, is the game dominated by primarily Japanese manufacturers?

There are a TON of aftermarket manufactures, I'd say well over 100, with the majority naturally being from JDM tuning culture. No one has even come close….

Thank you very much for your time with us today in talking about The Fast and the Furious. Is there anything you would like to add?

Thanks for the opportunity to speak in detail about what makes F&F so cool. There are a ton of gamers out there who are looking for a different take on this kind of game. F&F is the fastest, most comprehensive take on this genre ever attempted on any platform.

We have the support of the community and are looking to honor that by being as true, as honest, and as fun possible with bringing that experience onto home console.

Sep 21, 2006 - 7:14 am | 0 comments
Jason Dobson