There are fifty licensed vehicles in SRS from Mitsubishi, Subaru, Lexus, Nissan, and Volkswagen. Honda vehicles aren't included, which is pretty much ridiculous since the Honda Civic pretty much single handedly started the tuner culture in the US. Overall the lineup is pretty good, though.

SRS has all of the modes you would expect in a racing game. Arcade mode lets you pick a car and a race and immediately put the pedal to the metal. There are multiplayer and online modes as well, and it is pretty fun to put together a kickass car and show it off online. Where you'll be spending most of your time, however, is the Street mode. This is where you enter races, win cash, and tune your cars.

The Street mode does a much better job of being true to tuner culture than Need for Speed: Underground. NFS:U is more like the glamorous preppy rich kid wannabe side of street racing (though still fun) while Street Racing Syndicate shows the more gritty, realistic side where you have to constantly tweak and tune in order to win. You start SRS with a limited amount of money and have to purchase a low end car and then win races with it in order to make more money so you can pimp it out or buy a new ride. There are several different types of races you can enter, but they all function pretty much the same. You can enter races against rival racing groups on the street, enter sanctioned events on closed tracks, and have one-on-one races against drivers you meet on the streets.

One of the draws of SRS is that everything is presented in a wide open city and you have to actually drive to the race locations or car dealership or your garage. The races take place on these streets as well, so driving around and learning the layout of each city is key to winning races. You meet rivals on the street as well and you can race against them by pulling up behind them and flashing your lights. Something that makes the game much more interesting is that there are police cars making the rounds as well, and if they catch you speeding or driving crazy, they will chase after you and you have to try to lose them if you don't want to pay the fine. Driving around the city gets old after a while, however, and unless you are desperate for cash and want to beat a rival roaming the streets for some easy money, it is pretty boring. Luckily, you can immediately jump to new races or to your garage through the menu.

The amount of customization options you have for your car is amazing and tuning and tweaking your car is easily the best part of SRS. You can upgrade every part of your engine and then put the car on a dyno so you get real horsepower numbers from the drive wheels. It is satisfying to play with the suspension or engine and then feel an immediate difference the next time you race. You can make visual upgrades as well by choosing one of several body kits, spoilers, and other things. Throw on some paint and choose a set of decals and you are good to go. Street Racing Syndicate offers a lot more choices for visual upgrades than NFS:U and the performance tuning is head and shoulders above what Underground allowed you to do.

So SRS is more true to real racing culture and offers a far better upgrade system than Need for Speed: Underground, but it fails in the most important aspect of all: Gameplay. There is no real sense of speed in SRS and even though your speedometer says 180 and your nitrous is making that "whoosh" sound, you still feel like you are crawling through the streets. The racing is fine, but it doesn't offer anything you haven't seen before. It is a combination of a lot of different racing games and doesn't to anything to really stand out. It rewards you for driving crazy like Project Gotham. You get extra boost by driving against traffic like Burnout. The wide open city racing reeks of Midnight Club. And the racing itself simply feels like a slower version of Need for Speed. Street Racing Syndicate isn't nearly as fun as the games it tries to copy, though, and that is its ultimate downfall. Graphically, SRS is a good looking game that manages to run pretty smoothly.

The car models are detailed and look just like their real life counterparts. The cities you race in look pretty similar and nothing about the environments really stands out. They look good, but they don't impress. The road has the clichéd wet look that lets you know this is a game about illegal street racing. The sound is also pretty good. The cars sound good and the different sets of exhaust pipes actually make different sounds. Between the engine noise and the sound of the tires on the road, SRS has a very realistic sound to it. The music is mostly hip-hop stuff that doesn't really fit in with the action on screen, but it is so forgettable that you learn to just ignore it. Street Racing Syndicate has a lot of interesting ideas and actually beats other games in the street racing genre in some areas, but the racing itself is boring and tries to copy other games' success rather than finding its own style. It is hard to deny that the customization and performance tuning options are top notch, but there really isn't any point if the actual racing isn't enjoyable. Street Racing Syndicate is a solid rental.