Juiced: Praise the lowered

Gamely touted by Acclaim CEO Rod Cousens as "a full extension of the culture that embodies street racing," Juiced, developed by Juice Games, looks poised to emulate the phenomenal success experienced by EA's Christmas smash Need for Speed: Underground.

Unlike NFS: Underground the game features licensed cars from the likes of Toyota, Honda VW, Fiat, Renault, Subaru et al. And you won't be stuck with a bog-standard showroom model either. Juiced will offer "thousands of realtime modding combinations" taking in everything from the stickers - sorry, decals - on your motor to the gubbins that actually make the thing go. Like stink.

The aftermarket parts involved are licensed too and we imagine the petrolheads amongst you will be gratified to be chossing from the wares of such fine automobile accessory vendors as A'PEXi, AEM, Ferodo and Konig. Right?

This is actually a game too, though, and racing will revolve around a non-linear, cash and profile based single-player mode, or allow you to take your exhaustively modded motor into action online on all formats.

Juiced will cruise onto Xbox, PC and PS2 in Autumn 2004