Are you turned on by neon at high speeds? Does the idea of buying a $3,000 car and then spending $50,000 to modify it make your spine tingle? Then you might want to give The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift a look when it hits stores next month. Based more or less on the third Fast and the Furious movie, it'll give you free rein to mod the hell out of over 100 real-life cars and race them at high speeds through Tokyo's streets and freeways.

There are more than 300 modification options available in Tokyo Drift, from bumpers and “drift charm” trinkets to things like body-widening kits, and all of it is licensed for the game by real manufacturers. What's more, you can customize it to the point of putting different-sized wheels on each axle. Just be aware that everything you do will affect your car's performance, as Tokyo Drift actually takes things like tire compounds and street surface into account when deciding whether you stay on course or go careening into a wall.

But while Tokyo Drift's deep modding system and attention to detail seem to be aimed squarely at gearheads, you won't need to know a Pioneer AVG-VDP-1 navigation system from a Work Emotion XD9 wheel to play. The game is based on a series of blockbusters, after all, and it delivers an awesome sensation of speed, with lots of blurring and shaky camera work. And even at high velocity, the cars look great - for the PS2, anyway.

Given its name, Tokyo Drift focuses heavily on drift racing, which involves a lot of skidding sideways. The game's developers boast that it'll feature the most authentic drift system to date, although players less keen on realism can turn on an “assist” system and have the computer help them out a little on those tight turns. You'll also get some help from the “visual feedback arc,” a curved row of lights that pop up under your car and light up to show you just how close to skidding out of control you are. It's a cool feature that helps set Tokyo Drift apart from the madding street-racer crowd.

While Tokyo Drift is set in the same world as the movie, it doesn't share its storyline, and progression through the game is fairly open-ended. Between races, you'll tear along a freeway “hub,” with the exits leading to things like garages, car dealers and eight different racing locations - four in the city and four in the mountains.

While it could still use a little polishing, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift's wealth of modding options and sheer sense of speed already look promising. So long as its gameplay holds up to the same standards, this could be one of those adaptations that transcends the movie it's based on. We'll find out for ourselves later this week at E3.

May 9, 2006