Need for Speed: Underground

The Good
Graphics:

The creators did a very smart thing when they made the graphics for NFS. They made the cars look realistic but they didn't make them look dull, the cars still look flashy and one of the best things in the game is adding on parts to make your car look better.

Sound:

The cars sound great, when you get the turbo you can actually hear it as you change gear and the music is actually worth listening to with a little R&B and some other heavy stuff so it will appeal to all different kinds of people.

Gameplay:

I have never really been a fan of racing games but I played this game at a friends house and we were just playing drag for ages. After that I had to buy it for myself and I realized that story mode was as good as multi-player (even if it does get a little repetitive in the later levels.) There are many different types of competitions so that you do not get bored of doing the same thing over and over again. The best types of competitions in my opinion are drag, where you race against three other cars down a long strip of road trying to dodge traffic and get perfect gear shifts to leave your opponents eating your dust. And the other type of competition is drift, where you drive (or skid) around a track that had just been covered in water and try to do the most drifts within the time or lap limit.

The Bad
Graphics:

The only thing I have to complain about the graphics is that light shines off everything. The road looks like it has just been polished every time you have a race.

Sound:

There is nothing much wrong with the sound in NFS except for the fact that the sound track is not extensive enough so you will most probably end up getting sick of all the songs after hearing them hundreds of times while you are racing the repetitive races.

Gameplay:

In total there are 112 races in the underground mode of need for speed. That might all sound good but the problem is there is only about 30 circuits so you end up racing tracks more than twice and it gets a bit annoying doing the same race to many times.

The Bottom Line
I said before that I have never been a very big fan of racing game but NFS drew me in and didn't let me go until I had done up about every car there is to do. So no matter what types of games you usually play just remember this is not an average racing game.

The Good
Almost everything.

The game's graphics are very nice, and the cars look "hot". A tuned up car looks absolutely impressive. The environment (the city) looks okay, and I liked the idea of night driving.

The user interface is simple, and easy to use. I liked the event selection, and career advancement system, which is simple, and "user-friendly". To advance in your career you must win some races. After you win those races, you will be "transported" to a new tier. Where, again you must win other races. This may sound boring at first, but it is one of the most fun career advancement ways i've ever seen.

The game's soundtrack is, as usual, PERFECT. Most of the ST's singles are to my liking.

The actor's voice-acting is OK. Maybe a little bit too much ghetto talk... but still OK.

The Nitrous Oxide car addon helps alot, but there are no graphical effects for it... .

The Bad
The storyline is kind of boring... nothing special about it.

The Motion Blur display option isn't that cool. If you like driving while drunk, then you should use this :)

The car control is a little to simple, but I suppose it's ok that way. Underground was never supposed to be a perfect sim.

The opponent's AI is mediocre. They usually crash near most difficult turns, and they can be easily taken out from the road.

The Bottom Line
Almost a masterpiece.

The Good
Lots of customization for your car, which is really the high point of the game. You do races, earn reputation points based on your stunts and uh, how phat your car looks.

Nice visual effects.

Great soundtrack, if you're a fan of that kind of stuff (I am not).

The cinematics were nicely done.

The Bad
Need For Speed was a great series. It steadily climbed from its meager start in Need For Speed, and look a giant leap with Hot Pursuit. It raised the bar even more with High Stakes, but it was around Porsche Unleashed that it began its decline. Since then, it's been tumbling downhill at an ever increasing speed, and Underground is just another hole for the franchise to fall into.

The game itself is fun enough, but that's only due to its simplicity. Pick a car, race, customize your car, race, pretty lights, race, MTV, pretty lights, drag race, blah blah blah. There are no cops, no damage, simple, unrealistic physics...the game plays like a prettier, but dumbed down Project Gotham Racing.

Also, someone explain why I spent a thousand bucks on computer upgrades only to have a whopping twelve frames per second on highest detail? Come on, even the X-Box can pull that crap off.

The Bottom Line
The series ended with Porsche Unleashed. If you cared for Hot Pursuit 2 (which I actually liked, due to the Hot Pursuit mode which kicks ass no matter what, really) and want to try it with a "phat MTV 2 Fast 2 Furious nigga ho mary jane underground" feel to it, you can't really go wrong with this game.