Need For Speed Underground, Yay or Nay? Options

[metalhead212]

Ok, i figured i would throw my 2 cents in on this game and see how everyone feels about it.

First off i would like to say that this is one of the best racers i have ever played. Sure it does have a few HUGE annoyances, but they are easily overlooked in the grand scale of things.

Visually this game is a huge leap above its "step-brother" Midnight Club. All the colors are vibrant, the city has got a great ammount of detail to it, the cars look absolutely awsome and the lighting affects are just spectacular. The best part about the looks of the game is being able to see the other cars in your car and vice versa in real time. The only major visual problem i had with the game is that it was a little to well done. When trying to customize my car i would have to repeatedly play around with the camera angle to try to get a non-glared view of what i was looking at if i was trying to look at some specific detail. Other than that the game really has no other visual dowfalls.

Story wise this game has nothing to offer. It has something that would resemble a story, but it only serves as a small staple to give the game some sort of continuity. Unfortunetly the "story" gives the player no motivation to finish the game. Truthfully i actually forgot the game had a story many times while trying to complete it the first time through.

Where the game lacks in story it throughly makes up in other features, such customization. This is the games main selling feature. Just about anything you can think of can be remade on your car (Rims, Exhaust Tips, Tint, Decals, Side Skirts, Bumpers, Ect.) Just customizeing your car alone can take up a great deal of time. The best part of the customization is that the game doesn't offer a cookie cutter color scheme and some crappy generic decals. The player has a wide variety of everything to choose from, so no two cars can look alike.

The two biggest gripes i have about how the game are the way the AI is set up, and the physics of the game. Those two elements make everyrace very unfair. The AI can take a 90 degree turn at 100+ where as the player go crashing into the wall and do 500 flips before they hit the ground and come to a dead stop BACKWARDS. That is the second gripe i have about the game. Whenever you land from a flip or crash into anything the car always ends up facing BACKWARDS!!

All together I would give this game a 7.5 or an 8.0. The game has the potentail to be a 10, but because of the small things like the A.I., a little background clipping, and the car springboarding into the air at every little jolt the 10 factor is a far cry.

[Unregistered007]

The overall concept of the game is awesome. Really goes deep to satisfy a street looser's CAR. But all th eraces with cheesy lighting in street makes it sometimes hard, I oftem found myself hitting walls.

[adil786]

nice review,

i found the game extremely repetitive,

[sh4d0w_sh4d3]

Ill agree with adil. The game was fun for maybe the first 3 days that i played it and then i got to all the annoying endurence races where its 6 laps against really hard players. I would recommend this game as a "its only fun if you rent it" game. I think its really cool though how much you can tune your cars up and i think that the games soundtrack is REALLY good. its an alright game if you're into racing games but if you're a big fan of the "fast and the furious" franchise you will love this game. The intro video is kick ass too

[Morbidsoul]

Personally I think its the best race game since Podracer for the PC. All the customizing adds alot of replay value, even if the races do get competitive.

[MrBones]

The first time I played through I was ready to throw it out the window around race 80 or so, those endurance races were so damn ridiculous, but I recently played through it again, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I still remembered the tracks enough that I didn't have any trouble with them.

The only real problem with the AI is they play catch up. What I mean is they'll stick right behind you waiting for you to mess up and blow past you, but when you're behind them, they've always got just enough of a lead so you can see them but not catch them.

[tommy2hotty]

[X2Gamer]

When you crash you can't catch up that's the thing one maistake and you're screwed, but for them they crash and come right back.

[sulfur]

^ so true.

i don't take the shortcuts at all anymore, b/c i always mess up and hit a pole or somthing and i die.

[darkslider802]

[warlock110]

the truth is that racing against the comp sux, omg they freaking catch up to u with 400mile/h speed, and when u lag behind they wait for u, it's no fun, and they never hit anything, even when they go up the hill and can't see anything ahead, they still don't hit anything, it's freaking fustrating, i tried to lead the whole 4 freaking lap, and at then end I hit a van that come out of no where, and ended at 4th place, what the hell is that. This game is alright, they just need to fix the computer to be more realistic, and that goes for every single racing game out there.

[Snowfire]

I agree. Racing games are starting to get less realistic. The only thing that they're concetrating on is the freedom to customize your ride. But of course, this is what the public wants. Not many people care about performance anymore. They just care about pimping their ride. After all, the game is called Need For Speed, not Pimp My Ride.

[ronetone]

i like the game since it is real and not like midnight club but i hate the fact that the stages are the same over and over. gets pretty old after awhile not to mention the comp cheats like hell you can make simple mistakes and lose a race while the comp wrecks and still blow you away. and hopfully an xbox game called pimp my ride will be the next game

[farbird]

it is a good game..
but on the xbox, it lacks multiplayer..

split screen mode suck ass.
stock cars multiplayer is even worse..

but singleplayer mode works great for me..
now at 73

[mikeuk2004]

This was the first game I ever rented and thank god I just rented it. I love racing games and have played all the best and I love Need For Speed. But when I played this I thought this is crap, what the hell has EA done to this. They have tried to make a street racing game I guess to go with fast and the Furious and have ruined a great game series.

The graphics are poor and everything is blended in so much you cant tell what is the road a car or a wall and the colouring is crap. I gave it a go and played through for a while to give it the benefit of doubt and hope it improves and it doesn't. Everygame made from a film has been crap there hasn't been any film game that has been playable as they just through anything together and use the name to sell it. I know this is not created as a fast and the furious game but they must of had some inspiration from it and try to make it look like it to sell NFS underground.

The game is tedious and gets very boring and as a racing game is very poor. With a racing game you can always go back to it and race again and is fun always, with this you dont get that urge to play it again.

I still play Original Need For Speed on the 3DO which was the best. It is still playable and fun to play. In 10 years time I would not be playing Need For Speed Underground. I am glad I only paid £4 renting it and not £40 buying it. I got 2 nights to play it and only used 1 night then took it back.

Looks like ill be digging out my PS2 and get GT 4 when its out in the next couple of weeks, but you still cant beat GR2 and TOCA2 on XBOX.


They better make sure they improve NFS for the next game and improve the mistakes made.