And yes, vinyls and stickers will be available. You can change the spoilers, fenders, tires, rims, color, license plate, body color, body kit, tail lights, hood (which they call a "bonnet," like the British do), and more (like adding neon lights and interior dashboard colors and styles). Of course you can totally customize the exterior, too. All of these things are explained while you wait for levels to load up, so at least you'll have something to do while waiting 30-40 seconds. You can do things like turning your wheels (front or back) inward for better grip and traction, determine their hardness (for better or worse grip, traction, or wear), and more. The amount of detail is prodigious, really. You can tweak lots of stuff, spoilers, gear ratio, camber, damper stabilizer, alignment, car height, wheel types, cooling systems, mufflers, nitro systems, power train, transmission, clutch, suspension, brakes, and more. Genki's game is designed to permit incremental upgrades, and as you earn CP (credit points) you'll be able to manage your car's growth. I own a Mazda RX-8 and this car doesn't drive a thing like the real deal. Weeee! Your first cars won't drive all that well. Hit nitro and watch the drugs take affect. Import Tuner Challenge gives you a pretty significant powerslide to work with, too, so make sure to start your slides on inside turns because you will slide. But catching side ramps, fenders, and walls has a serious affect on your velocity, putting a mighty damper on it right away. Speaking of crashing, cars don't appear to take damage, at least not on the exterior and from what I've seen not anywhere else (meaning the engine, shocks, etc.). They slow down, taking the "perfect line." All that means to you is it's catch-up time! Hit that turn fast and stay away from barriers and other cars, and you'll be on your way. The catchable guys usually handle turns rather squeamishly. The first two types can be distinguished by how they round turns. You'll notice three types of racers off the bat: Those who are way better than you, those that are catchable, and those guys who you can smoke quickly and easily. At least, that's how the cars drive at first. The care drive with a rather Ridge Racer-esque arcade quality that's neither new nor particularly swaying. Once you get past the introductory sequences (and at least in this preview build there were a lot of little cutscenes and even more load times), the racing itself is also rather unglamorous. You'll get three viewpoints, two in car, one over the shoulder. Thus, some dudes just won't race you until later. Racers will agree to challenges based on what looks like car type, specs, or credit points, the mode's currency. The characters you meet are black silhouettes posed in sly poses, and each one has an attitude, at least that's what you read in the systematic word bubbles that appear when you challenge them. You'll notice very little in the way of extravagance here. These guys usually hang out in gangs and have colorful names like the Muskateers, or the Blue Lighting Drivers, and other crazy sh&^%. You generally have open access to the different courses, but you'll have to work through the ranks of drivers. Quest Mode pits you against a variety of characters that "own," or at least think they own, the Tokyo streets. The game supposedly supports Microsoft's official steering wheel (due this fall), which means if you're up for it, the controls can be even more refined. You can switch from manual to automatic (shifting it handled by the left and right bumpers), and that's about it. There is an acceleration command (right trigger), brake (left trigger), flash headlights (A) that also serves to engage random street racers in a battle, hand brake (X), horn (click left analog), and Nitro (B). The game controls relatively simplistically. Since I love Mazda's relatively new RX-8, I grabbed that car, gave it a nice sheen of Winning Blue, and tailored the license plate to Douguchan, which my former Japanese girlfriend used to call me. You start off with a reasonable chunk of change to buy a vehicle. In Quest mode, you're a newbie racer trying to get in on the Tokyo street scene. It provides a few modes of play, Battle System, Quest Mode, Time Attack, Free Run, Versus Battle, and Xbox Live online play. ![]() The game is straightforward in presentation and design. Exclusively for the Xbox 360 and due to hit streets by the end of September, Import Tuner Challenge enables players to drive real Japanese street cars, tune and customize them, and compete against hardened midnight racers across a narrow range of metropolitan highways (called Shutoko) and streets.
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