Need for Speed Underground
The franchise takes an impressive turn into new territory. Full review
By Deez Quirky
Updated: 13 Dec 2018 5:57 am
Posted: 15 Nov 2003 4:49 am
Only a year gone and Electronic Arts is already burning rubber with another Need for Speed title. Last year the publisher released Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, a fantastic racer on the PlayStation 2, but one not quite as polished on other platforms. Since developer Black Box was responsible for the slick PS2 iteration, EA recruited them to develop the next in the franchise.
Aptly titled Need for Speed Underground, it focuses on the custom kit and import car circuit. It is most commonly, and certainly not unfairly, compared to the theme featured in the popular The Fast and the Furious movies. So, it is a definite departure from the world of exotic cars and over-the-top police chases that the series was founded on. It broadens the NFS franchise, bringing a number of things to the starting line that other arcade racers have not. More than anything, it features a robust customization mode that is intricately sewn into a lengthy franchise-style single-player experience.
It's a world of gorgeous girls, rocket-fast racing, stunning graphics, and some of the most impressive vehicle customization ever created. Yes, we'd be crazy not to like it -- and so would you.
Gameplay
Need for Speed Underground borrows, instead of simulating, from the increasingly popular custom kit and import car scene. The days when Dodge Neons, VW Golfs, Subaru Imprezas and Mazda Miatas were just reminders you couldn't have a flashy sports car are gone; in the ever-growing circle of elite street racers, dedicated auto fanatics are turning the mid-range class of almost-sports-cars into decked out, eye-catching street rockets. The underground scene of backstreet, nighttime racers has evolved into a whole new industry. Companies like AEM, Enkei, Jackson Racing, HKS, and StreetGlow provide lines of custom upgrades for otherwise everyday cars -- like the Impreza -- so you can deck them out and turn them into your personalized street machine.
Black Box and EA have gone to great measures to capture this gritty, sometimes seedy underworld, partnering with the biggest product lines and major car manufacturers. It seems its goal was to create a racer that provided more vehicle customization than anything ever seen before, and to this extent it succeeded brilliantly. The flexible car customization mode offers up 20 different vehicles, not a huge number, but with all the different options the variety of personalized cars you can create is in the billions, according to EA. These "Customize Your Ride" options take center stage of the gameplay. Underground's single-player mode is intimately tied into unlocking new parts for your car -- both of the performance increasing and aesthetic variety.
The total gameplay experience is tuned into the 111-objective "Underground" mode. Like a story, it unfolds as your challengers message you via your in-car video display. There are a few FMV sequences now and then, but mostly it is just audio clips and animated heads that deliver your objectives. It works perfectly, however, and is presented seamlessly. To diversify gameplay from just being regular racing as we've seen it before, Black Box crafted a number of different race types -- essentially you have Race, Drift, and Drag. Race is actually broken up into a number of styles, including point-to-point (one long stretch of a track), circuit (multi-lap), and knockout (cars in last place are booted each lap; last car across the line wins). So, there's a respectable variety to mix up Underground's story mode.
It melds flawlessly with the theme and does a brilliant job of immersing you in the "Underground" world. Drag and Drift add a great deal of depth, too, because the physics and driving rules have been tweaked so much that they practically stand on their own. No racers have offered up such a complete, story-driven package. Set up almost like chapters, you usually hopscotch between the different styles of racing, then rinse and repeat. It's a bit formulaic in that way, but it works pretty well. Over the 111 objectives there are special challenges and rewards, like one-on-one challenges to increase your "Underground" ranking on the charts, magazine covers are earned often -- a very cool feature, and more often are new parts and body kits unlocked.
The racing mechanics themselves are all finely tuned, as they so often are in the NFS games, kind of realistically heavy but still adhering to a flexible arcade style. Deadly quick would also describe the sensation of speed. Part of this is thanks to the graphical prowess, but the pace of the tracks is balanced intelligently with the cars' top speeds. Black Box has cleverly integrated some of the elements Criterion's Burnout series introduced like points for near misses, drifts around corners, and overall your style of driving. Based on your performance you accumulate style points, which are basically experience points that earn you new custom parts, the aforementioned magazine covers, and even special pre-made top-end vehicles for use in the "Quick Race" arcade mode. It really is a nicely balanced and tightly wound single-player mode thanks to all these special touches.
For actual racing, traffic becomes an issue as you progress through Underground, which helps to heighten the intensity of racing, but at the same time it can become frustrating. You can't predict traffic and sometimes reaction skills simply won't save you. In a way this takes away from demonstrating your pure driving skills against the AI, which is bothersome at times. But, it forces you to be very cautious around corners later in the game -- petal to the metal simply won't apply. Fortunately, the CPU drivers are programmed extremely well. They fall victim to the same mistakes of nailing traffic head-on and when you try to take them on side-by-side they display aggressiveness. This is another area Black Box balanced well; if you make some mistakes by hitting traffic they won't blow you out of the water and take an uncompromising lead. It also adds to the realism. Many times have we trailed a lead car around the last corner only to see their car take a hit from oncoming traffic and go flying. This adds an intense amount of satisfaction to the racing.In other words, physically, the racing feels great; running AI off the roads, skillfully cutting corners, finding the shortcuts, and driving with some style is all very rewarding most of the time.
The motivation to play Need for Speed Underground, then, is to create the ultimate ride. You get satisfaction from winning races, but there are a few reasons it can become redundant. Firstly, you don't actually tune your car -- there is no setting gear ratios, traction, or anything of the sort that requires of choice. You unlock three levels of engines, turbos, nitro, transmissions, and so on. This is where the "Customize Your Ride" lacks a bit of oomph. No skill or decision making is required. Things like a new Nitrous package (one of the three levels) unlock when you complete a certain one of the 111-objectives. We were disappointed to discover this. It may make the gameplay easier to figure out, but given the incredible amount of aesthetic improvements we were really hoping that tuning would be a highlight of the gameplay. After all, a highlight of modifying these vehicles is being different.
So, by creating the ultimate ride we mean unlocking level-three parts of everything that makes your car faster and better to handle and then designing the aesthetics to your heart's content. Need for Speed Underground focuses sharply on this element, and it is honestly the biggest reason to play. The sheer amount of options is insane, and the implementation is staggering. We started with a crappy green Dodge Neon. It was slow, embarrassing to look at, and just flatly pitiful. But by in
