Need for Speed: Underground (2003)

Ah... Need for Speed Underground. Such a great game that has a great dose of nostalgia going back at it after over 20 years. with great music, atmosphere, artstyle, CARS... until you decide to play through the entire game.

The first part of the 10 or so races you play in this game are so much fun at first. it gives you the rush of youth and nostalgia and the culture of the time. no problems here, AI is good, physics are good, you get the point.

Once you move past the first 10 or so races, this is when the real frustration starts.

The controls do not always register the input precisely or on time to respond to the player's action, causing the player to crash a lot. you will also get used to the physics of this game where a small nudge from traffic car or another racing car, will send you flying and flip flopping throughout the track, which will force you to restart the whole race all over again. there are also tracks that has inadvisable walls while they are clearly designed to be a ramp or shortcut, but sometimes they will just act like it's your fault for going there.

This is not saying the game is bad, because disregarding all the issues, when the game functions as intended, it is heck of a lot of fun. though, I wouldn't recommend playing this if you easily get angry because the game screws you over.

Notice that I did not mention the AI, because you can find a workaround them.

Edit: Never mind, the rubber-banding is fucking infuriating. lower the car handling levels to maintain sane difficulty and gameplay.

You're trying to take me You're trying to make me This is the only Give me the only thing: A PORT OF THIS GAME!

Groundbreaking all time classic: You get out of the cinema after watching The Fast and The Furious and your teenage self desperately wants to be Brian O'Connor but you are not blonde, nor hot, nor a cop working undercover in the illegal racing scene. What's the best next thing? Being Vin Diesel but what is the next best thing? THIS!

I can still remember my favorite car, my favorite spec of nitrous, my favorite race, I still remember how to recreate Brian's Nissan Skyline from the second movie as faithful as possible. Maaaaan how many cultural products WISH for a tenth of the long-lasting level of engagement this shit has.

It is really a shame that this title belongs to the Nostalgia circuit right now. Every single Retro Gamer Influencer on Instagram has at least one post playing or talking about this game, and still EA is like "Need for Speed Underground? don't know her" which I find baffling, just baffling.

Next time I will try to review a more recent game not so affected by nostalgia, because this one? No my man, to this game all the praise and love my freaking nostalgic heart can possibly give, no restrains.

Rating: ★★★½ (Good)

After showing what they were capable of with the PS2 version of Hot Pursuit 2, Black Box was assigned the development of the subsequent Need for Speed title. As its first take on the series, they scratched the super cars in favor of import tuners, which were very popular in mainstream media of the time due to The Fast and the Furious. And, truth be told, Black Box did a really good job in capturing the scene in this game.

The game really gives you a feeling that you are doing illegal street racing. From the gritty art style to the nice lighting / reflections of the night, and finally to the sense of speed. You can really feel you can barely control your car at high speeds.

The story is simple, but it's built well enough to keep you engaged with the game. The characters and their cars are somehow memorable, and the ranking system combined with the fact all racers in every race are preset, not randomly generated, make the stakes very much personal. I also find the text (race names and their descriptions) a bit interesting.

Soundtrack is extremely well chosen, I'd say it's one of the best parts of the experience. Nothing beats you racing to a song telling you were born too slow.

It would be nice if going fast was deterministic though. Because sometimes the feeling of being unable to control the car isn't only a feeling, but a reality. Sometimes the car goes airborne and sometimes it slides at a simple touch of the brakes (stability control doesn't help). Black Box would perfect its handling model over the years to follow, but it's not yet there. I mean, it's not bad, it's quite fun until something happens and things go off road.

Another problem is that the traffic is really unfair. They are placed at the worst possible places for the player. It may be in an important spot of a curve, a blind spot in a hill, or at the time you are going through an intersection. And I mean, it's not random. It's clearly a deliberate design decision, because you can notice the pattern in multi lap races. It's very hard to keep the same performance as the IA when you also have to avoid these traps targeted at you. Sure, the AI will be affected if they are nearby you, but if they are either too far ahead (or too far behind), chances are it'll be hard to catch up (or they will catch up easily) because they don't have such traffic spawns to disturb them.

Race tracks repeat a little, but I can forgive this because career is cool and short. Also because the level design is impressive. The city is small, yet they managed to seamlessly fit many districts into it.

Another minor issue is the visual reputation system, where you are forced to rice your car, but that can be removed through the use of a mod. That's what I did, so I cannot comment on the effects of the system on the experience.

Overall, this is a good game, but with problems that might turn the experience into an anger fest once in a while, such as restarting long races multiple times to learn traffic patterns, or going airborne / drifting at the last corner.