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EA and Racing don't mix

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 14
Date: January 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is a sad time for us online racers. After EA pulled the plug on Motor City Online (which I paid to play for a year and a half), their abilities as a game making company have drastically disinigrated, while their "bottom line" has done nothing but grow. This game is an obvious attempt to make money, not to let people race.
The gameplay is extremely lacking, as the game is as linear as the original Mario Brother's game. The driving is not half bad, but the challenge of real racing is not there. The claim that customization is unlimited is completely false, as the only variety available is with exterior peices. There are different manufacturers for every performance part, but they do absolutely nothing to change the dynamics of the cars.
And then there's the cars. Each car looks different, sure, but they all drive exactly the same. For instance, the "big" Nissan Skyline drives the same as the Mazda RX-7 drives the same as the VW Golf drives the same as... you get the picture.
The final nail in this game's coffin is its replay value, or rather, its complete lack thereof. I finished the game in a week and a half, and I'm no ace driver. I played online for about a day, but the interface is so frustrating I haven't touched it for two weeks now. I doubt I'll ever start it up again, that's how sad it is.
If EA had actually included a useable parts system (à la Motor City) this game would be a contender for my fav. racing game. As it stands, this was a waste of money. Catering to the Fast & Furious crowd has destroyed racing and turned it into a glamor show. This game is the beginning of the end of Need For Speed, because it stopped being about the racing long ago.

The Pimpingest Game Out There!!!!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: January 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I bought Need for Speed Underground the very day it came out and I haven't put it down since. The graphics are incredible. If you have an ATI Radeon 9600, a Pentium 4 processor, you're in for some serious I candy. The graphics get blury when you start going fast, and the lights on the side of the road leave trails when you turn or go fast, especially when you hit the nitrous button. Now here's what I have to say about the car customization. There are nearly limitless possibilities. You can customize just about everything on your car. From the paint to the rims to the muffler tip, almost anything is possible. The game modes are as follows

1. Circuit: The same as in previous NFS games. Race on charted courses through the city and finish laps as fast as you can.

2.Sprint: Race on parts of the circuit tracks from point A to point B

3. Drift: Get sideways to score big points. If you're in the tuner scene, you'll know what this is.

4. Lap Knock-out: Last place driver on each lap is eliminated.

And finally the best for last...
DRAG RACING!!!!! The origin of Street racing. It's about ten times as intense as anything on four wheels. Those that use an automatic transmission beware. You have to use a manual transmission in drag racing. You can't just not turn and floor it if you expect to win. You also gotta launch at the right time and nail those shifts. If you have NOS, it's going to be extremely intense on the strip.

To sum it up, if you liked the previous NFS games with luxury exotic cars, you might be dissapointed. But if you enjoyed seeing Paul Walker, Vin Deisel, and Tyrese tear it up in "The Fast and the Furious" and "2Fast 2Furious", you're gonna liove this game.

I *love* this game!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: May 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

What I do NOT like about this game, is:

1) the amount of time it takes for it to start. First you get the "EA Games - Challenge Everything", intro, followed by the THX logo (if THX is important to me, I'll look for it on the box; no need to mention it every friggin' time I start the game!), followed by a brief scene of a race car. Unless you press a key at this point, you also get some guy who warns you to (IRL) drive safely and responsibly. Yawn! It's with strong feelings of nostalgia that I think back and remember Doom, where you could skip the repetitive crap by simply pressing ENTER. Doom seemed to never throw away key strokes from the keyboard buffer.
2) The differences between the cars are limited. As another reviewer pointed out, you can start with the cheapest car available, and by the end of the game (through some modding) you can still keep up with all the other cars. This seems unlikely as the other cars are way more expensive than the car you started with -and I doubt the mods can compensate for that.
3) I don't like drag and drift races but there's no way to skip 'em. However, I guess you need those lows to appreciate the highs of the actual racing. Fortunately it IS possible to do the drift and drag races at an easy level (in drifting it also helps to use bad tires), so they don't take much time to get past.

But all in all, I think it's a great game. Admittedly, I'm not an expereienced game player (the only other racing game I know well is ReVolt), but I guess there are lots of people like me out there, and they may consider this a recommendation.

I often end a lost race with a frustrated exclamation of the F-word, followed immediately by the realisation that: "I *love* this game!!"

A solid arcade game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: January 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Those who expect realistic physics model and distinctive performance characteristics for different cars will be disappointed.

-No damage model, none whatsoever! Even bumpers don't fall off after impact.
-All cars handle the same
-Force feedback steering is not precise and responsive (this is after playing F1 2002 and Colin McRae 3)

On the other hand the graphics is very pretty. If you are the fan of The Fast and The Furious movies, you'll love this game.

I'm a hard-core simulation gamer, so I got bored pretty fast because theirs no learning curve. You cannot hone your skills, you are pretty good from very beginning and your victories pretty much depend on luck.

Flash crap for kids

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: January 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I agree with the review from Valter from brazil I can't beleive anyone but a child would think this game is good. NFS porsche unleashed is a great game and I bought this and the previous release hoping for an improvement on that game but ea. games has totally lost the point of what was a great series.I gave it 2 stars because the obvious target audience will love this nonsense, otherwise 1 star is more suitable.

Enjoyable Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: May 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing this game for a couple of months and I must say that is is addictive.

The graphics are very good; the cars and the tracks are well designed to give you a good time.

Somebody remarked in a review that EA programmers are unable to come up with damage modelling even with 21st technology. This is not true. The game uses real car models licensed from manufacturers, and manufacturers will not allow the cars to be damaged/totalled. This is what constrains the programmers.

I would definitely rate this game as a "buy". It's not easy to win races, the computer controlled cars are pretty good (but not impossible to beat - just the right level of handicap).

There are some quirks though:
1. You cannot play your own MP3s in the game (a la GTA Vice City). This sucks because you keep listening to the same songs over and over.

2. Confusing menu - there is an "underground menu" which has 111 races, these are the real races. You also have a races under the main menu (quick races). These two are related, but it is not easy to understand the relationships. You can unlock cars by winning underground, but you can only play these cars in the quick races!

3. The cars often have garish decals, vinlys and paint jobs. I wish these were more tastefully done. The shape of the cars are stunningly modelled though (especially the Honda Civic, IMO). I also think there is too much Neon in the streets and the road surfaces shiny (they designers probably wanted an Arcade look).

4. To Pause you need to press ESC key. Why did God make the Pause key then??

Need for Speed does it again!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: April 02, 2004
Author: Amazon User

EA Games' new Need for Speed game blows away the competition! I don't care what anyone here says. I have no problems in the game whatsoever.

I run a 1ghz AMD w/ 256 megs of RAM and a GeForce 5600 256mb graphics card. For game play, I use a Logitech Wingman Formula Force GP steering wheel w/ foot pedals. The force feedback response in the game is excellent! You can feel every little bump, dip, and bank in the road, just like you're really there! Plus, EA Games has given us some visual mode adjustments such as blurred motion and blurring lights! EXCELLENT!

I bought this game yesterday, and didn't have enough time to play. Today, I loaded it up after work and started playing. That was 6 hours ago!

Modes: Drag Race, Drift (slide your car around on slick tracks and score points!), Circuit, Sprint (single lap, long tracks), Lap Knockout, and Free Run. Beat the different modes to unlock new tracks, vehicles, and parts!

Graphics, Audio, Force Feedback, all A+ material! You can even totally customize the LOOKS (gets you more points) as well as the performance of your car!! I can't wait to try multiplayer! BUY THIS GAME!

Great 3D action for those who suffer from 3D seasickness

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: January 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Other reviews cover just about everything, but I'd like to add one important feature for us unfortunate few:

For whatever reason, I can't play Doom type 3D games without getting pretty darn seasick after 20 minutes or so. I have had to give up on a number of games, such as Vampire Bloodlines, because going up and down stairs was just too much. Anyway, I have a number of friends who suffer the same thing.

I tried both Need for Speed Undergound and Need for Speed Underground 2. While the latter has a wonderful open feel of roaming around, it did make me seasick. The first Need for Speed does not! It's still wonderful visually. I wish I could explore without racing, as in the sequel, but still the tradeoff is well worth it.

a MUST-HAVE for racing gamer

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: December 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

i have been a "Need for Speed" series fan. UNDERGROUND is the best one. I love to change the way my car looks, 'rims, decals, spoiler, paints, bodykits' Everything can be customize.
There are 111 levels in underground mode. It will keep me entertain for a long time.
All the race will be in night time, it need sometime to get use to. Drag and Drift races are new addition to UNDERGROUND.

Need for Speed is BORING!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: December 27, 2003
Author: Amazon User

When I bought Need for Speed underground, I was quite suprised that it did not have a cockpit view, when you hit a car you don't get damaged, and why even give the view a slow motion when you hit a car and nothing really exiting happens. I would strongly urge you to buy Midtown Madness 1 or 2, or even Burn out, point of impact for the computar. They are a million times more fun then this game.

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