Product Description

Enter the world of urban street racing and high-performance tuner cars in Need for Speed Underground. Take on today's most popular tuner cars from Mitsubishi Motors, Subaru, Toyota and many more, building the ultimate street machine by earning cash to pay for custom body kits and a host of licensed car performance modes. But just creating a custom street-racing machine will not get you to the top; it takes a certain amount of attitude and razor-sharp driving skills to compete in the tough world of urban racing.

A number of diverse events set in gritty, night-time environments make up the heart of street competition. Players become complete street racers by perfecting skills in each event by nailing the perfect shift in drag racing and by putting their street cred on the line, racing through the city streets at all hours of the night.

Prove you belong in the elite street-racing circles, work your way up the underground rankings and take on the best of the best in each discipline.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3194 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Released on: 2003-11-21
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Platform: PlayStation2

Official PlayStation 2 Magazine
"Street racing + huge wodges of cash = fast, furious game that's exectuted with filmic sheen. Simply irresistible. 9/10."

GamesMaster Magazine
"Arcade racing taken to the extreme with bags of variety, modes and upgrades."

Customer Reviews

Insane racing that keeps you hooked
The hype around this game was unreal, so much so that I just had to give it a try. The bare bones of this game is street racing at night in highly-modified cars. As you win you get cash to upgrade your car. Simple.

At the start of the game, pick your car from a choice of about 6. You don't have enough money to modify so it starts out as standard. Enter the Underground where you must race through approx. 111 different challanges to complete the game. These challanges range from: racing around a circuit over so many laps, race from A to B, drag racing (straight-line, short-shifting race a' la' Fast & Furious), drifting (basically points for sliding around a track sideways), knockouts (last one around each lap is out) and tournaments (points for positions).

The variety of race is definately there: circuits one minute, then drifting the next. As you get cash you purchase mods for your car. Ranging from performance: turbos, ECU, drivetrain, tyres, suspension, brakes, engine, nitrous and so on, to visual: spoilers, valances, alloys, paint jobs, vinyls, neons, exhausts, side skirts, etc. Or even trade in for a new car when you're fed up of this one.

There's plenty to keep you interested out-of-race, but what about when you're foot's on the pedal? The graphics are very good, colourful, and smooth (except right at the start of the race it tends to slow down a tad). The speeds you travel at are insane - so much so that sometimes you find yourself rounding a corner at about 100mph (usually necessary to avoid losing) and going straight into the front of a lorry that you had no chance of avoiding. This is why I rated the game 4/5 not 5/5. The frustration factor sometimes gets quite high - you find yourself doing the same race over and over again because one small crash puts you from first place to last place. Thankfully you have the option to choose the difficulty level (easy, medium, hard) at the start of each race, with your cash reward being adjusted accordingly.

All in all this game is fast-paced, looks good, sounds great, and has plenty to keep you hooked, even when you are losing your temper (like me!)

NFS Goes Underground!
First of all I shall point out the most obvious change between NFS Underground and the previous games in the series. Where as the previous NFS games where all about racing exotic supercars Underground is all about modified cars. Some NFS purists may be put off by this but they should not be. Underground remains true to its name and both NFS vetrens and newcomers should feel right at home. The gameplay remains much the same; take an officialy licensed car and tear around a track as quickly as possible avoiding traffic and police as you go. Underground builds on this format. You can now customise your car with thousands of officialy licensed aftermarket parts including; wheels, under-car neons, body kits, body styling, thousands of decals and vinyls, and a multitude of performance parts from tyres and suspension to turbo kits and nitrous oxide. This gives endless variation to the game and will keep you coming back to create faster and meaner street machines. There are also two more types of race than in previous games. As well as Circuit, Sprint, and Lap Knockout there are now Drag and Drift. In drift the idea is to slide as much as you can around a small circuit with constant twists and turns and this is a welcome change of pace after playing many races. In drag mode the idea is to race down a straight peice of road and cross the finish line first. This may seem boring but the way it is done is excellent; you have to use manual gears and there is a large rev counter on the lefthand side of the screen. To suceed (especially in later races) you need to be able to get 'Good' or 'Perfect' shifts and so timing is everything. Change too soon and you will lose speed but over rev and risk blowing your engine and breaking down. Coupled with hazards such as construction, traffic and train crossings this mode is amazingly addictive and will have you playing time after time to try and beat your quickest run. The handling of the cars is actually changed dramatically for each mode so that for instance, in drag mode you can tap a direction and just switch lane rather than sliding into a barrier. In the main story mode you play as an up and coming street racer trying to become the best in the city. Throughout the races you will unlock more parts, tracks and cars. During races you also gain style points which unlock more flash paintjobs, decals and so on. The more you modify your car the more reputation it gains and your reputation acts as a multiplier for your style points so if your car has a reputation of 3 then all of your style points are multiplied by 3. As your car becomes more well known you are also put on the covers of various modified car magazines. All the different race modes are included in the two player mode which is no end of fun. The graphics are incredibly smooth and polished to create an ever so slightly surreal neon lit city at night and the cars look fantastic. One of the best things about NFS Underground is the soundtrack. It complies of rock, rap and drum and bass by artists including; Mystikal, T.I, Rob Zombie, Lostprophets, Rancid, Asian Dub Foundation, Overseer, Fuel and more. Along with accurate engine noises that change as they are tuned this is one of the best sounding games avalible. With an excellent learning curve and a fabulous online play mode on top of all this NFS Underground is one of the best driving/racing games out at the moment.

Fantastic, amazing, brilliant, superb.....
This is the No. 1 racing game for the PC, in my opinion and the best Need for Speed game in the entire series. There are so many different visual and performance upgrades to add to your car that its playability value is pretty much limitless.

The graphics are lovely and the game is obviously modelled on 2 Fast 2 Furious. However, this is a major plus! All racing is done at night (do not let this put you off because the atmosphere and exhilaration would not work if it was set during the day). The only minor (and I mean VERY minor) criticism is that I would have liked to see a few more non-Japanese cars in the game, since only 4 cars are not Japanese (Ford, Dodge, Peugeot and VW). Perhaps if they had added 10 European and American cars and 10 Japanese it would have been that little bit better. However, do not let this worry you, BUY the game as soon as possible!