Pros: Amazing graphics, nice transition to faster cars through the game, music
Cons: Unavoidable traffic, tracks get old after a while
The Bottom Line: This may be the best racing game I've tried. Awesome graphics, well executed game play, and a kicking sound track are a winning combination.
gdinero's Full Review: Need For Speed Underground for PlayStation 2
NFS Underground may be the best driving game I've played. It's just a lot of fun and has a lot of cool effects and absolutely stunning graphics. It also doesn't have any programming bugs as far as I know: the game has never hung up and required resetting.
Start Yer Engines!
The game starts with your choice of a quick race or the Underground mode, where you race through 111 races working your way up to the top of the best racer in a bunch of categories. To start off with, you get your choice of a base car, like a Civic or Golf. You can also start adding modifications with the little cash you have.
Execution
Like any other good game, this one is great because of how it plays.
1) It has 3 basic types of races
- Drag racing which tests how well you can perfectly shift gears while keeping an eye on the traffic ahead. Once you have upgraded to some NOS, the races are really cool.
- Laps or sprints through the city
- Drifting... you get points on how well you can make it through a slippery track based on how sideways your car is in combo with your speed
2) Difficulty by race
- Each race you can choose to be Easy, Medium, or Hard. I don't really know, but I think that the rewards unlocked and points are the same for all levels; the only thing that changes is how much money you earn. This is nice in that if you get frustrated by a race, you can try to do it in the Easy mode
3) Slow but consistent unlocking of goodies
- You get a little addicted to looking for the next upgrade. You can visually upgrade your car which helps your reputation, which in turn helps your Style Points, which in turn unlocks more goodies. It's a nice circle.
4) Progressive soundtrack
- The soundtrack songs all involve cars and racing. The music does get a little repitive over time, but overall I think they did a great job of picking songs that will get you pumped. (if you don't like some hip hop or rock or techno, you won't like the soundtrack)
5) Stunning graphics
- The lighting on the track is awesome. Really difficult to describe, but kind of like blurred lighting you might experience at night (all the racing is at night). The cars are decked out really cool (I am 100% not into real life tricked out cars, but the game makes them the coolest thing)
6) Upgrading your car or trading in your car
One thing I never liked about Gran Turismo is that you can't tell how fast your car will be once you spent a bunch of money to upgrade it... and you couldn't undo the upgrades or transfer them to other cars.
In NFS Underground, it tells you in terms of (a) Acceleration, (b) Top Speed, and (c) Handling what kind of performance boost you'll get with an upgrade. It also tells you the difference in car performance before you trade in your car for another. And Finally, you can trade in your car for another and keep all your upgrades for free. And then trade back to your old car for free.
7) Computer generated cars and racers
-Over all I thought the AI is decent. Occasionally I think it's a little screwy. For example, on a difficult race toward the end of the game, I had not made any mistakes in any of the 6 laps (not sure that I couldn't have perhaps taken some turns better, but no real mistakes). But going into the final few turns, I was losing by a second or two. Then the leading car took a poor 'short cut' choice which cost him the race. In all prior laps he had chosen the most efficient path, and it was like they let me win.
The traffic can be really really really really really annoying. And it seems that on the more difficult races, the AI never ever hits any, while I always seem to hit innocent bystander cars because they show up out of nowhere. It's my biggest problem with the game as a whole.
What's not to like?
There are a few things I don't like about the game.
First, the random traffic sucks and annoys me to no end. I'll do a race near perfect, only to hit a car that I have no chance of avoiding in the final turn of the race. That's not fun.
Nitro is really cool, but doesn't seem to make a difference unless you use it toward the end of the race. If I use it in lap 3 of 6 to get ahead, invariable the other racers catch up. If I'm behind by 7 seconds in lap 3 or 6, assuming no major mistakes, invariably I catchup to the leader.
In Drifting mode, the car you use makes a huge difference in how well you perform, and on a few of the tracks it took me quite a few tries to win the race with the crappy car I had to use (before better cars unlocked).
The tracks do get a little repetitive. But then you have to consider that there are 111 races. Sooner or later, any racing game will get old with that number of races.
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