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The New King of Arcade Racing Games !

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 22 / 25
Date: December 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Driving fans rejoice! Jumping on the popularity of import street racing, and borrowing heavily from the driving scenes of The Fast and the Furious, NFS Underground is a combination of both beauty and brains that's a must-have for any racing fan; provided you have the hardware to handle it. Best of all, you don't have to endure Paul Walker's lame acting.

Slicked up and glowing with neon, EA's latest release is the most visually stunning NFS game produced to date. You can actually see the reflection of your car and the surroundings off the rain-soaked streets. Even more impressive are how the screen explodes in light and your surroundings shake into a chaotic mess as you approach speeds much higher than your car was originally designed to handle. It's the most visceral feeling of speed in a game yet as you really feel like your computer is doing 150mph. Unfortunately, all this eye candy comes at a price as you'll need some serious hardware to experience it in all its glory. Plan on having at least a Geforce 3 or a Radeon 9000 just for low detail settings. For full detail you'll need at least a Radeon 9600 or a Geforce 5600, not to mention a quick CPU and plenty of RAM.

Many liked EA's previous NFS release, Hot Pursuit, but I was disappointed as the attention to the driving physics seemed to go out the window. I had the same complaint about Midnight Club II; a game that, in a word, sucked. Fortunately, I can say this is not the case in NFS Underground. Each car has a distinctive feel, with individual strengths and weaknesses. It's an arcade racer at heart, but there are enough differences in the cars to make you want to experiment with different cars and find the one that suits your style of driving best.

Sound effects are top-notch. THX enabled, the engines roar to life and cars, buildings, and slow moving objects whoosh past your ears in true surround sound. Those with 4+ speaker setups are in for a real treat with this game. Also included are about 25 tracks ranging from rap to rock to techno, featuring artists like BT, Nate Dogg, Overseer, Fuel, and Static-X. While it's a decent selection, it's still only about 2 hours of music. Perhaps it's just me, but music with vocals gets repetitive and annoying over time as opposed to background music. I never liked that "Get Low" song much to begin with. I've heard it so much now I'm at the point of self-mutilation. Fortunately, EA provides you with the ability to customize the soundtrack so you can eliminate the songs you don't like.

The game isn't perfect. Even with 21st century technology, EA programmers are still unable to create any car damage modeling whatsoever. The cartoonish sight of your car doing triple flips in midair and on the street, only to land without a scratch seriously detracts from the otherwise realistic looking environment you're racing in. And, like all NFS games before it, you're still racing in a tunnel whether it looks like it or not. Just once I'd like to do an out of control jump and actually land in a swimming pool or someone's house instead of simply pinballing off the edge of the screen and back on to the road. The lack of a replay option is also unfortunate.

Customizing your car is a cool (and addicting) feature of NFS Underground, yet EA's method of implementation leaves something to be desired. I can understand that performance options, such as turbo, NOS, and weight reduction kits, are not unlocked until you win key races so the game remains balanced. What I don't understand are why visual upgrades such as paint, vinyl, and even decals are locked up? It's almost laughable to win a race just so you unlock a sticker.

Even with these minor gripes, I would have given it five stars. The "last straw," so to speak, is the A.I. The game gets insanely difficult as you start to climb the ranks. Races are won and lost in mere tenths of a second. What will set you off the deep end is the phenomenon of what I can only describe as the computer "throwing cars at you." As you round a blind corner or jump, you will frequently find yourself directly in the path of the only car on the road. I've been in situations where I have opponents directly to the left and right of me. Guess which lane the slow moving car is in? To some extent, you can use this to your advantage by closely following (drafting) an opponent so they slam into the traffic meant for you. Unfortunately, you still have to compensate for the fact that all of your opponents are psychic. I can't tell you the number of times an opponent managed to slam on the brakes to avoid traffic they couldn't possibly have seen in advance. As much as I love this game, this unfair advantage is too aggravating for me to be able to give it five stars. In the difficult settings, winning becomes less about driving ability and more about dumb luck that you don't slam into something that'll cost you the entire race.

That said, I still recommend this game for racing fans. It's a high-tech thrill that really does fulfill your Need for Speed and it's certainly one of the finest games EA has produced.

Hope the review helped.

Fun, but not educational

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: November 19, 2006
Author: Amazon User

My child enjoys this game, for hours at a time. That's exactly the problem. The game is good, it is not violent, and it's fun. It is also addictive.

If you don't mind the addictive nature of computer games, and want something that is fun, but non-violent, this is a good choice.

Worthless eye candy, designed by marketroids for morons

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 19 / 28
Date: January 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Wow, they can do wet asphalt at night! Hmmm, so what? There's so much that's wrong with this game, that I don't know where to start. Let's see a few of them:
1) all cars handle the same way.
2) all cars handle too well, they are too easy to drive.
3) having no challenge in driving the cars, they put traffic in, the bane of all racing games! Do they think Russian roulette with six bullets is fun? There are places where you are in mid-air when you are first able to see an intersection, there's no way to deviate from the cross-traffic, unless you drive slowly. Winning is *purely* luck, no skills at all are involved.
4) all tracks look the same, a city at night, it gets boring after a short time.
5) there are technical bugs. For instance, after a crash the force feedback doesn't reset when you abort.
6) there's no damage mode, the quickest way through a tight corner is crashing on purpose.
7) when you take-off in a bump the camera changes automatically to an off-track point of view.
8) the physical simulation is incorrect, you cannot do a 360 turn: after any crash the car always ends pointing the wrong way. There's no "four point" simulation, you cannot control oversteer/understeer with the pedals.
9) there's no difference among the AI drivers, the cars are always bundled together.
10) there are no sport or racing cars, only the cheap street cars they want to market for the morons who actually like this stupid game.
11) in drag mode the steering is changed to a very low sensitivity.
12) as you progress through the "underground" mode, the only difference in the more "advanced" races is that there is more traffic, always that stupid traffic. You don't need more *skills* as you progress through the game, only more luck.

I could go on for hours, but I think my point is clear: if you like car simulation games, just say no. This crap is designed for people who have never driven a car and have no idea at all how it's done. And it's a big disappointment, because EA *did* know how to design racing games in the past. Take the "Porsche 2000/Porsche Unleashed" game, for instance. For those of us who don't have the needed skills or patience to learn to handle the 1967 Formula One cars in "Grand Prix Legends", the "NFS Porsche" game was very close to perfection. You got a wide variety of cars, you could do a detailed *technical* customization, the physical simulation was very good, although a bit "arcade-ish", there was a good range of tracks... I was hoping this latest NFS would be an improvement. What a disappointment. It seems that EA dumped the engineers and hired a bunch of graphical designers instead. Worthless, I have bought bad racing games in the discount rack a few times before, but I never expected such a big disappointment from the NFS series.

This everything you've expected and then some.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 28
Date: November 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

First of all, I know how most games in this typed of genre are overrated. Trust me, I went out and bought MCII because of this and after a week I was bored and frustrated with it and ultimately sold it. But man after downloading the demo of NFSU,
I was blown away once it fired up. This game is simply amazing. It's like 2Fast 2Furious is being ren-acted on my monitor. It's that great. But for starters, I would only recommend buying the PC version only if you have a very new high-end computer and DSL, if not get it on the consoles. The great graphics alone are a must have. But to get down to how the game is. This game is truly authentic because you can virtually customize anything on or to your car. In the demo it shows a car blank without any mods and then it converts it to being fully done. So, I can't wait for the full version so I can do it myself. The driving is so much fun because it's so real. When you hit high speeds you have much dificulty controlling the car. If you manually shift and you overrev the car bogs down. If you hit NOS in low gears you blow your engine. If you crash thats it you're done. This is all just in the demo. Finally, what every one's wanted in a import racing game is here: drag racing. It's great, it's exactly how anyone would picture it. The online play is very addicting also. So with all this said, all I can say is buy this game. If you have a high-end PC and DSL download it for yourself and be amazed.

(8.0 out of 10) fun, but flawed.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: December 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Okay, so everyone is nuts about this game. and when i finally played it, i understood why. the cutomization options are such a fun gimmick- i had a lot of fun turning an ugly yellow VW GTI into a drag racing monster with beautifully tinted windows, custom decals, and rims of my choosing. It's what everyone wants when they play a racing game- the ability to craft a car that suits their taste, right down to the type of exhaust. And i have no problem with the fact that this feature was implemented. i think it was a good idea. The problem I have is with the way that it was implemented.
Why am i still unlocking decals and vinyl at level 100? who cares that i finally unlocked the nitrous express decal; dont i deserve more than that at level 100? and why dont i get the wide body kit until the 3rd to last race? great! i can throw this wide body kit on my car, which does absolutely nothing for performance, so that i look good for the final competition.

Money is never a problem in this game. You always have more than enough to unlock anything you want, because you get money after every race. So, a better way to do this would have been to make everything availible from the start of the game, with higher prices on the performance parts and consistent lower prices on the things you dont need (like decals and vinyl). That way, the player can see what they could potentially be unlocking and work for it, instead of just having it blindly handed to them when they can most definately afford it. But because of the way the customization system was implemented, theres really no point in having money in this game.

My other complaint is with the AI. its not like you're actually racing to gain distance on other cars, ever. its more like you're racing against other cars that will always either be ahead of you, or slightly behind you, and catching up fast. This is especially true in later races, where even if you set the difficulty to easy, cars will catch up quickly, and most likely, pass you. I did an experiment to see how the AI worked, and what i found was kind of dissapointing. In later races, when i would perform almost flawlessly (because i'd had to do the same race about 50 times over and over), another car would always be right behind me, or in front of me. But when i slowed down to the pace of the rest of the group, the AI was more lenient, and waited for me. An advantage to this is that the gameplay always provides tension. But the disadvantage is far greater: having to do a six or seven lap race over and over, possibly doing a single circuit a hundred times, just because you crashed once.

Of course, these are technical flaws, and the game appeals to people at an aesthetically pleasing and fun level, rather than a technical one. its an arcade racer, and it doesn't dissapoint at it's arcadiness. You customize your car because it makes it look better. You race against difficult AI becase nothing beats the thrill of seeing the screen blur all those downtown lights into a complete euphoric mass when you use your nitrous to barely pass up another car, just before the finish line. The graphics are amazing, and are a complete evolution from previous nfs games. I should also mention that with a good video card (i'm using a readeon 9600xt), the pc version of this game looks way better than any of the console versions.

This game has conquered it's niche, with cutscenes and music straight outta the fast & the furious (the drawbridge jumps are a complete rip-off of the second movie's drawbridge scene). And the cars are awesome in that they're actually licensed, and you treat em' like your babies as they go from crap to demi-god machines. And i guess thats what matters most with this game- fun. And you'll have quite a great deal of that, as long as you're willing to put up with a slightly less amount of frustration.

Not just another racing game.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: November 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I have never played a game like this in my life! It is awsome. You can change the way the car looks and sounds, it is totaly custumizable. The pros: (1)Great sound effects and soundtrack really brings the feeling of the game to life. (2)Awsome special effects! nitro booster and the screen shake in drag mode are my favorite. (3)The cars look cool. You can unlock and custumize just about anything. (4)Graphics are stunning! Cons:(1)No replay mode. Really horrible...(2)You can crash into a semi at 150mph and you wont get a scratch on your car! The dammage engine is a bit iffy.(3)The game is a bit long. You have to win 111 races. After about 50 races, half the stuff is unlocked, but I start to loose intrest in playing. (4) Levels are repetitive.

Overall I would rate this game 4 of 5 stars. It is a great bang for the buck!

Great graphics, and entertaining...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: November 28, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game is definitely worth trying out... and at first it plays great, and you can have a blast, especially when matching parts, colors and such, which are all customizable, until you reach the later levels when the game starts getting a bit hard and extremely frustrating. Count on repeating a level lots of times to beat it... it gets hard to control your car at high speeds and they cheaply increase difficulty simply by planting traffic in front of you... EVEN in drag races. I was under the impression that racers blocked off streets for drag races? Not so in this game. Hitting traffic will be very high on your list of reasons for restarting the races... If you like a challenge and have plenty of patience this game is 100% for you. If you think it's cool but see yourself punching a hole in the wall after having traffic appear in your path and sending you spinning out of the race... RENT it for a console first.

Sick game!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: November 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

When I got this game i thought it would be like your normal racing game. when i first poped it in it blew me away. i could not beleve all of the small details that make the game so good. I mean, who would add different pakages you can get to custumize your car and the bluring of the lights when you are going fast is great. It looks absolutely AWSOME! if you are not sure weather to by it or not take my advice, GET THIS GAME NOW!!!!

very good game except in drag mode

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

i find this game to be very good except in one thing. When you enter drag mode, you can not select witch transmission type you want. I personally like manual anyway, but they only give you that option in drag mode. This may be a difficulity to newer racing game players. Another thing i have to say bad about thhe game is it is too hard to beat, it took me and my friends 5 weeks stragiht to beat it.

bigr5026s opinion

You can't deny a great game.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Regardless of your personal views of illegal street racing, Need For Speed : Underground provides an unmatched thrill-ride in the racing genre. You may think the cars look silly, you may think the reckless people who drag race them down public streets should all be arrested, but when you slap it all into a well-polished video game package, the appeal is undeniable. Whether its the allure of the tuner subculture or just an enjoyment of racing games in general that draws you in, I can almost gaurantee you'll be hooked after the first few 100 mile an hour tours of NFS:U's virtual metropolis.

The driving engine offered here is both friendly yet complex, allowing beginners to quickly pick up and become familiar with it, and more seasoned players to exploit a number of skillful feats to shave precious seconds off their lap times. In addition, it has an excellent "feel" to it. Both the car's physics and the motion of the camera will constantly react to even the slightest control input as you send your tricked-out racers barreling across intersections and down narrow alleyways at break-neck speeds.

As much as I personally enjoy games like GTA and Mafia which allow you to race recklessly down city streets, the average cookie-cutter racing sim has never really appealed to me much. You get a fancy car, you get a nice open track, and you get to drive around it; I can't say the formula excites me much. NFS:U picks up the dynamic slack that most racing games lack, providing you with an interesting "real" environment for your racing exploits and additionally allowing a broad degree of freedom for how to fine tune both the performance and appearance of your cars. This means that, hey, you don't like the way pimped-out street racers look? You don't have to race one. Your ride can be as wild or as domesticated as you want it to be, but the racing experience will always be the former.

Some of the races can be pretty tense, especially into the later portion of the game, but the learning curve is pretty smooth so by the time you've worked your way to that point you should be able to handle the extra ante of competition.

All in all an excellent racing game that is accessible to casual players yet offers plenty of rewards for those who put in their dues behind the virtual wheel.

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