By staff writer Brenden Dalipe

L.A. Rush… where do I begin? L.A. Rush is a racing game released on October 10, 2005 for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Windows, the Xbox, and the Gizmondo. The game is the fourth installment in the “Rush” series, following San Francisco Rush 2049, San Francisco Rush, and Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA.

You play as Trikz, an underground street racer who owns a mansion and tons of cars. He’s hosting a party at his mansion, when a man named Lidell (who you’ll soon come to hate) drops by to invite Trikz to a street racing championship. However, when Lidell and his crew find the car he’s using, a Nissan 240SX, they start to feel a bit… overconfident. However, they still decide to “pull some strings”… by stealing Trikz’s cars and destroying his mansion, while Trikz takes a vacation with his friend Ty, to get ready for the championship. The only thing left Trikz can use is his trusty 240SX (because the Hummer H2 they drove back to the mansion was just towed).

Ty begins to hunt down the stolen cars with a traitor from last night’s party, who is actually a friend of Lidell. Trikz begins the championship with a bang, destroying the competition in areas of Los Angeles like Hollywood, Santa Monica, South Bay, South Central, Downtown, and Compton. In the middle of all of the street races, Ty or Ryan Friedlinghaus of West Coast Customs would sometimes call Trikz to tell him about the location of a stolen car, or where Trikz can get some revenge on Lidell.

There are 30 licensed cars in the game, including the Cadillac Escalade, Chevrolet Camaro, and Nissan 240SX, and 20 Midway concept cars (because the game and other Rush games were published or developed by Midway). You can use the money you’ve earned from races or other events (*cough cough* obliterating Lidell’s Corvette Z06 by sending it flying off a parking lot roof) to pimp or upgrade your car at West Coast Customs.

To be honest, this was a complete change of style compared to the other Rush games. Like, a huge difference. It also doesn’t have many of the features of other critically acclaimed racing games like Forza Horizon 2 or Grid Autosport, like a bigger selection of cars or the ability to make your own customizations to cars.

In the end, I would give this game a 4.8 out of 10 for obvious reasons (*cough* “wonderful” sound effects *cough cough* “great” selection of music *cough*). Not one of the greatest games I’ve ever played, but does still have potential to be an okay game in certain areas, like the fact that you can get your car customized, at least. If you want to see some gameplay of this (for some reason), see it here.