Many of the major console publishers have a thug-related videogame on deck for the 2005 holiday season and Ubisoft is no different. Known for its Splinter Cells, its Far Cries, and its Rainbow Sixes, the company that's risen to power off its war-based titles has decided to keep it real and hit the streets in its upcoming shooter 187 Ride or Die, a thrilling vehicular combat game that merges hot and tricked out muscles cars with beefy thugs and hot @$$ ladies who have guns in their pockets and aren't too happy to see you.

187 Ride or Die tells the story of Buck, a gang banger who's doing everything except California Dreamin. He actually works for a crime boss by the name of Dupree, a cat that was recently shot nine times by his rival Cortez (not to be confused with the dude from Timesplitters). Problem is (problem for Cortez, anyway) Dupree lived to tell about the ordeal, and as you may have assumed, he's not exactly thrilled about the whole nine bullets plunged into his body thing, so he's hired Buck to hit the California streets and exact revenge on his behalf, and this is what you'll be doing for the entire game. You'll select from over 30 hot muscle cars (it's probably a safe bet to assume that some of these will need to be unlocked), choose a damn fine lady to be your driver (more on driving in a sec), and you burn rubber down numerous highways searching for fools to bust caps into.

Based on what I've seen, 187's one tight @$$ vehicular combat game. Essentially a drive-by simulator to the stars, you're able to actually steer the car (sadly, your lady is just a showpiece for the most part) and lean out of the passenger side/stand up through the sun roof/aim out the car's back window and blast away using a plethora of different weapons including a pistol (which is the gun that you begin the game with), a machine gun, shotguns, Molotov cocktails, a bazooka, and other nifty devices. There are between 56-60 missions in the game, and while they differ (assassination and escort are two examples), it appears that you'll always need to give some original gangstas proper burials inside the burning wreckage that was once their unique whip.

EA's Burnout games showed the world that giant wrecks can be cool as hell, and while 187 doesn't feature such outlandish crashes the various rides in the game do in fact take damage and it will alter the vehicle's performance, though the emphasis seems to have been placed on killing the people inside of the cars instead of obliterating the automobiles. Also, unlike other games that give you the giant middle finger if you should slip up (as the AI hastily blows by your sorry butt), 187's developers have put in place a system that causes the computer to make mistakes if you're lagging behind, so you should be able to always catch up to the action after clipping a wall and spinning out of control.

As I previously mentioned, for the most part your luscious lady friend is really just a placeholder, that is, unless you need to shoot from your car's rear window. It appears that getting shot off screen will happen quite a bit, so rather than have its game pay homage to the cheap NES games that came out over a decade ago Ubisoft will allow us to even the score. However, since firing out the back window and steering at the same time is rather difficult (because...uhh...I do it all the time), your "driver" will take the wheel so you and I can fill our enemies full of lead. The AI won't drive as fast as we probably will, but if we're armed with a bazooka, we can probably afford to lose a few extra miles per hour.

There's an unwritten law that says every game of this type needs to include a multiplayer component, and Ubisoft is abiding by it. 187 features two different configurations, one that's for four players (where you'll have the TV screen all to yourself) and a mode for up to 8 players, but you'll need to share the real estate with someone else in split screen I'm assuming. All of the rules from the single player apply, so you'll make mad scrambles for power-ups and weapons, then make Swiss cheese out of your opponents. Plus, Ubisoft has added the following cool game types into the mix: Deathmatch, Mine Field, Death Race, Whip, and Po-Po Chase. Deathmatch is mostly what we're all used to. You're going to race down a stretch of road annihilating the opposition and there will be power-ups and weapons to snatch. However, what makes it particularly interesting is the two health bars on the screen, one that belongs to your car, and the other that belongs to your gunner. Fail to protect him (or her), and you'll be riding around unarmed, a precarious situation indeed!

As for the other modes, they promise to be quite entertaining. In Mine Field you'll need to bob and weave around landmines that have been dropped onto the road. Death Race is an elimination tournament where the last loser is kicked out (so it'll conclude in a dramatic two car race), Whip is a typical race to the finish line, and lastly, Po-Po Chase seriously tests your survival skills by challenging you to outrun the law without using power ups and weapons.

In addition to the multiplayer modes there's also co-op play and it's not as cookie cutter as I previously thought it'd be. In this mode, you and a buddy can play the entire single player campaign with one of you driving and one of you shooting, but it's not that simple. The person manning the gun supposedly controls the car's boost, and the person driving it is in charge of the camera, so you need to work together to ensure that you come out on top. It's quite an interesting concept, especially since we can all do this online. Obviously, the best teams will be comprised of those who work well as a unit. The worst ones will include those people who do nothing but curse at one another via USB head set, which, to be honest, I'm looking forward to listening to.

Much like Ubisoft's upcoming Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII (which is a vehicular combat game of a different and delicious sort), 187's positively gorgeous. I don't know if its developers have constructed the levels after actual California locales (as in mapped the streets foot by foot and plopped landmarks onto it), but they've done a fantastic job recreating the "feel" of the state (parts of it anyway), and by that I mean its long stretches of highways, the palm trees, and the low income neighborhoods (the types that we see in old school 1990s rap videos). There also appears to be environmental damage that can be caused, as I've seen water furiously spurting from a busted hydrant.

As for the cars, they're all very impressive looking, colorful as hell, as shiny as a diamond, and tricked out as they should be. Character models have also been well done, and they sport tats and hip hop gear (whatever that's defined as). 187 also runs at a pretty speedy pace, and the frame rate holds up well even during the most frenzied altercations. It's just a damn fine looking videogame.

If a company's developing a game with urban flavor it's a good idea to pump it full of hip hop music, which Ubisoft is definitely doing. Compton rapper Guerilla Black has agreed to score 187's entire album! There will be 15 tracks, and hopefully each of them will enhance the overall mood of the game.

Car combat games aren't exactly a brand new genre, but since Konami, THQ, Capcom, and Namco's urban-themed titles involve fisticuffs 187 Ride or Die feels like a refreshing change of pace. Actually, when you think about it, Ride or Die's sort of like Nintendo's Mario Kart: Double Dash, only ghetto fabulous. All I know is some fools are going to pay once I enter the online arena, so put on a bandanna, check your colors, and lock and load when the game drops September 1.