Need For Speed: Underground für PlayStation 2

This is a game that involves races and cars that most people don't see. Everything happens under the cover of night so that the public eye isn't aware. This is the main premise of Need for Speed: Underground. You'll race though a total of 111 races to become the #1 street racing champ in the city. You start out with $10,000 to buy a car and are pitted against other opponents. This game excels in many areas.

Graphics

Absolutely gorgeous to say the least. The cars use real-time lighting and reflections to increase the sense of realism. Another graphical trick is the motion and light blur. For example, when you reach speeds over 100 mph, the lights of your surroundings take on a blur and trail so that when you turn, it'll have a blur appear based on the turning radius. The motion blur appears when Nitrous Oxide is used. Everything around your car instantly gets smeared backwards. It looks absolutely stunning and adds a true sense of speed. It's a very enjoyable feature when you want to go extremely fast. The cars themselves are modeled very well. They are modeled from real cars in today's market and it shows. Every modification that is put on the car looks stunning and extremely realistic. Every modification done to that car will put a smile on your face because of the simple fact that you see everything. If you do an engine modification, you see it put in. That's something I've never encountered in a game. Now for the flaws I've found. There have been incidents with the tires of my car spinning forward while the cars moving then stopping and spinning backwards, all while I've never stopped. What's the deal with this? The environments aren't the most stunning places you've ever seen but they get the job done. They're just run-of-the-mill buildings and such. The traffic in the races looks terrible. They're just plain geometric figures with wheels, and every car is white. I mean every when I say that too.


Sound

I'm not a big fan of rap or anything of the sort so this music got on my nerves quick. There is also trashy metal music as well as techno. I couldn't understand how someone could want to listen to that junk while racing. Luckily I could turn it all the way down and just enjoy the race noises. Those on the other hand are absolutely wonderful. The roar of the engine, the sound of the dump valve on the turbo, and the screech of the tires all add to feeling like you're in the car racing down the streets. This game has some of the best sounding engines in any game I've ever played. It's just like you're next to that car, I couldn't tell the difference. There are nice little touches as well. For example, if you drive into a tunnel, reverberation sounds throughout the tunnel as your car passes through. It really is satisfying to reach the upper RPM's while pacing through a tunnel. The Nitrous Oxide sounds great as well. It gives off a characteristic gas spurt and then you hear the car screech forward. Truly and utterly wonderful

Game play

This game features several different race modes such as Drift, Sprint, Circuit, and Drag. Drift races involve you trying to put your car through a slide on an oil slick track at an extreme angle. I found this mode to be rather boring and easy as I never came close to losing a race. Speaking of that, you can NEVER advance in races if you lose. You have to get first place every time which gets old quickly. Ok, now on to sprint. Sprint mode involves you going as fast as you can from point A to B. I liked this mode because you aren't going around in circles and are usually going at extreme speeds. It's a lot easier to do than saw Circuit mode. Circuit mode is essentially going around a certain area for a given number of times (laps). This mode is terrible! EA made the choice to put some races up to 6 laps and they're hard, I mean really hard. I've had many incidents where I'll get to the 6th lap, be just about to win, and then I'll hit a car. I'll say this now, if you hit a car, the race is over. I'll then I have to do the entire race over because of that stupid car that got in my way. I'd be way more content with 2-4 laps but they seem to enjoy placing 6 lap races in that drove me nuts. The final mode is drag. This involves you going from A to B but in a near straight line. You don't need to steer except to switch lanes. You'll rev the engine up until the ladies say go and then must shift and use Nitrous Oxide to get ahead of the other cars. I found this mode to be very fun and it's over quickly, unlike the circuit mode. You usually get to test your speed in Drag which is always fun because you get to feel the full power of your upgrades. On another note, so far I've had 617 total race tries and only completed 111. That alone should show you have many times you'll have the fun of restarting a race at the end. Other than this, the game performed pretty well in the game play area.