After booting up the game, a short demo comes on showing three red Ford cars - a Ford GT, Mustang GT and a regular Mustang. Usually an intro is supposed to get you excited for the game. After watching this one, I was worried that the game would play like the intro - a slow and mind-numbing experience. The backgrounds are repetitive and dull, and at first I thought the blurriness was to help give you the impression of speed, but no, that wasn't it. Even driving at 100+ miles an hour, I felt like I was going at 40 miles an hour.

Most racing games I've played come with an exciting soundtrack, so even if the graphics and game mechanics were really bad, the music at least keeps you excited and into the game. Unfortunately, there is no music in any of the races, instead you have some sketchy sounding beats when you're surfing the menus.

The game offers several modes of play; quick play allows you to jump right into a race, career mode lets you take on challenges in team and solo events to unlock tracks and cars. Since you only start off with two cars, it's probably best to head over to this mode first. Arcade mode lets you mess around with the cars that you have unlocked in either solo or team races.

The controls were okay, they were definitely along the lines of the more "realistic" type racing games rather than arcade style. I tried to nail a few cars into the side walls (I know, wrong game) but nothing really came out of it. This is obviously not my type of racing game, I found myself hitting poles and running into things as much as possible to keep myself amused.

Team racing is a fun idea where you control a team of two cars and need to rack up the highest total points. The idea is to get the best possible finishing position for both of your cars. Working together with the computer's AI can be challenging, but if done right, you can benefit in a race by drafting or by blocking other cars so that your team car can catch up. There are many different team race types to play through, some involve eliminating the last two cars from each lap or you need to overtake a set number of opponents. In the team spirit race, you have one of the slowest cars in the race, so with your other car, you need to use your skills to finish in an overall first position.

Ford Bold Moves Street Racing has some good ideas, and the name to give itself a boost. But overall, the presentation is terrible, which is part of the draw when people buy and play racing games. No one wants to drive clunky vehicles through grey city streets. The only thing that really looked nice were the screenshots between the long loading times.

I had my husband play this game as well, since he's at least had some experience with the previous Ford game. Here were his thoughts:

Ford Bold Moves Street Racing seems to take off from where the previous Ford Racing games left off, which isn't saying much. The entire series of Ford Racing games has always seemed like marketing from Ford. Right from the start in the main menu, the interface seems ripped from another much more popular car racing series, but lacks the wow factor. Maybe because everything is in different shades of Ford blue.

Once you start a race, you can immediately see a difference. The graphics are blocky, the background buildings are drab, and due to the PSP's small screen, the detail that may have went into the cars is lost since it was hard to tell an original GT40 from the new Ford GT. Or a '68 Mustang from a new Mustang GT.

The driving physics however, are the game's saving grace. Very similar to the feel of the big racing simulation game series on the PSX and PS2, each car's body roll, acceleration, braking, and thresholds of grip seems to have been accurately reproduced. A standing start in a high torque rear-wheel drive car will yield tremendous grip for your passenger rear tire, but little else. Torque steer for front-wheel drive cars is evident - just like a real car.

The range of Ford vehicles at first seems pretty good, until you actually sit there and look for some favorites. Personally, I'm a little miffed that several of the SVT (Special Vehicle Team) cars are missing. The SVT Contour, SVT Focus and even my beloved SVT Cobra (not the R) aren't represented. Older Fox body Mustangs are missing, and so are some of the performance vehicles from down under, namely the Australian market Ford Falcon.

Ford Bold Moves Street Racing doesn't seem to live up to its own title, as street racing in itself is based on a lot about the driver. The game offers no customization of your vehicle, and the streets themselves have nothing interesting except the occasional street light that you can knock down. If you're a Ford fan, it may be tempting to buy it, but take it from this gamer that bled Ford blue..it's not worth it even if it were free.