Need for Speed Underground

"A near perfect racing game that makes you swear a lot!"

I own all the NFS games and all of them rock with the exception of NFS:PU which had bad cars.... Anyways there are two types of people when it comes to racing games. People that like realism (AKA Gran Turismo) or people that like arcade style (AKA Burnout 2). This is an arcade style with a lot of Realism mixed in.

This game is the best game in the series. And as a bonus besides the fact you’re using street cars at night, you get lots of ways of customizing your car or just making it look sweet. You’ll need some really good skills in this!

Story?/10
I never really rate games like this that aren’t meant for story but are meant for the game itself. But if you want a story then you’re a street racer who starts with horrid stuff and works himself/herself up to better things. Along the way unlocking parts, decals, colors etc and even better cars.

Graphics 10/10
The graphics in this are IMO amazing. The detail is simply over whelming at first and if you use Blur with Blur Lights it looks so cool. You really get a sense a speed after enough upgrades. The cars are detailed to the max and there are so many millions of possibilities for upgrading or making your car look cooler it is mind boggling!

And in the game all the parts for your car and actual parts built exactly like the real thing. All the things in this game are REAL and licensed by real manufactures. Same goes with the DECALS which have company names! This is the high point of the game!

Audio 9/10
The sound in this is amazing. There isn’t a lot because it’s just a racing game but what sound there is very real and the game takes use of THX. Which is good for surround sound people!

The music is horrible. The only game with music this bad was SSX 3. Out of the huge list of songs only 3-4 are good and they happened to be the ones from the demo that I liked! Most are heavy rock that just doesn’t sound good with racing.

Controls 10/10
I’ve heard some people say things like ''I prefer a controller'' or ''Racing is only good on consoles''. I feel the opposite about the controls for this game. I felt it was harder for the consoles. You can customize the controls to your own need!

Drag and Drift modes 10/10
The new modes are awesome; both modes have tutorials in game...

Drag lets you drag race down a stretch of road. You have to shift gears at the right time (real easy) and use NOS. As the game moves on the courses get harder like there are cars, obstacles, changed roads, etc. And when you start there are about 6-8 lanes and you can move from lane to lane but you can’t drive normally. For instance you can only move straight and stay in the lane no matter which way it goes so you don’t have to steer. You just got to control what lane you want.

Drift is done on a small course(s) where you basically are spinning your tires and sliding around trying to get points. Its fun but after awhile it becomes easy.

Game play 10/10
There are lots of things to do. You could go Underground which is where you earn parts and stuff and race in different modes, each getting harder. Mutliplayer where you play online and can use custom cars. Quick race where you do whatever you choose, you can also use custom cars here.

The best mode is ''Customize Cars'' where you can take whatever car and add whatever you want for free (as long as you bought it/have it through Underground mode). These cars can be used online or in quick races or you can post pics of them online to show off your wheels.

Replay 10/10
Replay depends on what you like. There are some parts in the game that you get offered and you can only select one so the others you’ll have to beat the game again to get. Which is the bad part because you can’t have all the reward parts at once. But I could play this game forever but the Underground mode would probably get annoying real fast due to its difficulty!

How could I forget a section dedicated to the bad parts of this game!!!!
Most of these complaints have to do with Underground mode and are'nt as bad as they sound!

Auto CATCH up 2/10
The one bad thing about the NFS games is the Auto-Catch feature which lets you catch up the other guy or visa-versa.
But in this they can only catch up to you where as you rarely can do that to them. Which makes this game kind of a bummer. No matter how fast you go they go faster.

Difficulties that don’t seem to matter? 5/10
In the Underground mode before every race you can choose Easy, Medium or Hard. I’ve beaten the game on Easy and Medium but not on hard because it’s impossible so is Medium almost. On easy a lot of the times its easy as you would expect. But one race you can beat the PC with ease yet next race you’ll restart a million times because there gods then the next race it’s a breeze again.

AI 3/10
No matter what you do the AI is so darn impossible to understand. Somehow they can go around corners with top speeds and with perfection and rarely crash unless you push them. Not to mention the fact they (been proven) they have infinite NOS. They are definitely scripted and don’t even attack you that often.

Online Play 1/10
CHEATERS ONLINE are the worst part of this game. 95% of people online cheat and admit it. But it gets worse because there are no non-laggy servers. If I had to pick a ping id say everyone has like a 600 ping! IT’S HORRID! Not to mention you only have a chance if you have a maxed out Skyline or Miata.

Physics 4/10
The AI's physics have been proven to be different the yours. If they hit a wall or a car or anything they keep going with no loss of speed. Unless you got them in a spot that takes them awhile to move. But if you hit anything you become as light as a feather and fly though the air. UNLESS your perfect or have some luck you’ll lose for sure if you crash once.

HUGE requirements 5/10
The final issues is unless you got a monster rig don’t expect to have Blurring and Blurring lights on. You may have to sacrifice even more. My rig is only a 2.0 GHZ but if it wasn’t for my Radeon 9800 pro I would probably need some graphics toned down.

Two small negatives
1- No dashboard view!
2- No replay mode!

OVERALL 9/10
Even though it might look like I'm making this game out to be bad its not. I love this game. The things I pointed out get on your nerves in Underground mode near the end of the game. If you can restrain yourself from breaking something in your room and just stick to swearing like crazy you’ll live through it!

BTW in case you are wondering I did'nt give it a low score with all these complaints simply because I love a hard game(most of the time!)

GET THIS GAME NOW AND STOP READING IT!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/17/03