Need for Speed Underground

"What A Cheesy Racing Game..."

I'll start off by saying, if you liked the Fast and Furious movies, you'll be sure to like this also.
It basically has the same concept minus the action scenarios and the likes. It's another wannabee street racing game that falls short of anything having to do with real street racing. (Notably the checkered flags on normal streets).

Gameplay: 6/10
The gameplay is so basic, that it's not even a joke. It's like you can bump your way to get where you need to go. I have had races where I just scraped the wall through half a mile, and still was in 1st place (or last place...). The pyshics aren't horrible though, infact, they are pretty realistic, and can ALMOST be compared to Gran Turismo. The game gets really insane when you get higher into the races, actually... It gets so insane, it almost seems impossible to progress, since the traffic is basically your enemey at all times, popping up right in front of you (or the side of you) without any sort of warning at all.
Also, your opponents are a bit faster than you, so you have to make sure you can keep your ass in first place, because it's like once they pass you for more than 10 seconds, there's no way you can get back into first.

Graphics: 9/10
I have to honest admit, the graphics are so damn sweet, that they will litterally make your mouth (and eyes) water! I especially love the effects you can add such as the light blur, and car blur. The reason I didn't give it a full 10 is because if you put the motion blur on, it makes everything extra hard to see, so if you were in an intense race, about to win and a corner came up, you probably couldn't see it because the blur is still trying to catch up with you. I'm glad they put the option so you can turn it on and off, that's why my score won't get more higher, or lower. The car models are very pretty, they can really resemble most real cars, and depending on how good your PC is, you couldn't almost tell the difference whether it was real or not. My other rant is why is there no car damage? They should have put that, or at least made it in the options, but maybe that's just me who wants it? I would also recommend if they made a new one, to at least stop recycling the same map and trying to name it something else. I mean there's really one map in this game, they only make different routes to make it ''seem'' different.

Sound: 7/10
This is probably the reason why I am posting this whole FAQ. I mostly want to complain about one specific song, it's that song that starts in the beginning from Lil John I think, it goes ''Bara bum bum bum, ba bara bum barara''. No matter how many times I set that song to stop, it won't stop! I mean it's so annoying, it almost makes me want to turn the game off. Anyway on toward, this game has some really good songs, all of them are from real artist, so you can't really give EA a pat on the back for the music. The music ranges from Breakbeat, Rock, Hip Hop, Rap, and Electronic. Notably Asian Dub Foundation's song, which I'm sure everyone loves. Now as for the car sounds, they are pretty lame, they don't really sound like real car sounds, well maybe for the tire sounds in the Drifting session of the game. The NOS sounds like one of those silent farts that people lay when they try to hide it. I have heard NOS in real life, and it is nothing like in this game.

Replay: 10/10
God freaking damn! This game has an insane amount of replay, I mean, you could beat the same drift, or circuit mode race like 20 times, and still get extra vinyls (Like clothing for your car, Stickers, Decals ETC.). I mean I have beat the same Drift session over 12 times, and gotten so many items... And that's not even for the main game mode! You can get so many items, that it's not even funny. Very high replay value, although at sometimes, it don't seem worth it for what you get, but that's just how I feel about it anway.

Car Tuning: 6/10
Ok, so this is a street racing game... How come I can't mod the suspension? How come I can't mod the camber? How come I can't mod the gear ratios? You can't do any of this, and to true street racers, this is a very important part of racing in the first place is to mod your car from the inside, out. I mean, I'm sure real car lovers would by this game just by the way it looks, and expect to be able to fully mod the cars the way you want... But it just don't happen. I figured ''Hey, this is a street racing game, I'm sure they will have options to be able to let you set gear ratios and suspension height'', but no, there wasn't. It's not a super big issue, but it's still very important in my owh opinion.

Final Words:
If you just want to have a cool looking racing game to show off to your friends, or you want a game where you can paint your car and make it look like a bag of skittles, then this is the game for you. It's replay value is enough to make you want to buy it, since it's so high. But if you are a serious racing game fanatic, maybe this ain't your type of game.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/20/03