When I first heard about 187 Ride or Die I thought what we’d get is yet another Burnout or Need for Speed clone that would offer nothing new to genre. I am pleased to say I was wrong. Mostly.

It features many things that are similar to Need for Speed and even Midnight Club, such as the multiple-route city layouts, shiny cars, gangster-rap music, and mostly nighttime setting, but ‘187 is not just about racing.

The twist with 187 RoD is that along with racing opponents through point-to-point and circuit tracks, you also have a partner sitting in your passenger seat. He has guns, and it’s his job to destroy your opponent’s cars. Along the way you can pick up new weapons and ammo from pickups dotting along the tracks, and can also nick enemies’ weapons by ramming their car. Every car has an energy bar, and once it’s depleted the enemy car is destroyed, and shown in a Burnout 3-style ‘Takedown’ camera. You can also pick up health along the way, and also boost pickups, which you can use at any time by pressing L1. You can fire your weapon forward or backward, by pressing R1 or R2 respectively (although the alternative 360° control setup that uses the right stick to shoot and aim has its merits). I thought it might be tricky to drive and shoot at the same time, but the guns auto-aim, so you won’t be wasting ammo shooting at tarmac all the time.

The main story mode is split into different areas across the city, with various races/events to enter into. Some, as said previously, are just circuit races, but others are missions where you must protect another car from being damaged so it can get to a certain checkpoint for example. At certain points within the story mode you’ll get a smart FMV cut scene that progresses the story along, but the story is rather weak to be honest, and I’d imagine most gamers won’t care for it, and will just want to get into the racing.

There are lots of different cars in the game to win and unlock, and there are different series' of cars too, such as sports cars, SUVs and so on. Some cars within the same category don’t feel exactly the same, but the SUV’s certainly have a nice, weighty feel to them.

There is an online multiplayer mode in the game, but unfortunately there wasn’t a single soul around in any of the servers to play with, despite numerous attempts. Single player allows a single race/battle, and there’s a splitscreen mode too. The co-op game has one of you driving whilst the other does the shooting, it’s a nice variation on the solo game and can be a laugh riot as you can get your mate to help (or hinder) you in any of the story mode missions.